


In All My Dreams I Drown

by Anonymous



Category: Treasure Island - Lavery, Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
Genre: Dark, Denial, F/M, Female Jim Hawkins, Manipulation, Vignettes, au sequel, but this is historical escapism, it's not non-con but it's still sketchy, nearly all the triggers are also spoilers so I elected not to list them, none of this is healthy or condoneable in the real world, there's also more explict content in this fic than in everything else I have ever written combined
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:26:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 63,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28661691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Snapshots of terrible choices, deeds, long nights, and close calls. Left for dead by her friends, and then marooned, Jim makes friends again with the mutineer/ship's cook. When their rescuers are betrayed and the ship taken...Captain Silver informs the crew they are pirates now...and no one is to touch the cabin girl.
Relationships: Jim Hawkins/John Silver
Comments: 10
Kudos: 21
Collections: Anonymous





	1. At the Crossroads of Good Intentions

**Author's Note:**

> Intended for adult audiences only.

The ground is so uneven; some paved in stone or brick, other parts not covered at all. There’s slop and straw and sand and lord knows what else all over it, and Jim cringes at the feeling of the cracks in the doctor’s shoes letting the mud in. She’ll have to get new boots, along with new clothes, but where to even _find_ anything like that here?

_Stay on the ship_.

Absolutely _not_. She hasn’t seen living people other than the rum-runner crew in so long. Besides, if she was left alone much longer she was going to start thinking about the doctor, the squire, and Grandma.

Grandma must think she’s dead by now. She hopes not. She hopes that grown ups being so terrible, they would think it kinder to lie to her, tell her that her dear granddaughter fell in love with the sea and will return home one day, on a grand ship of her own.

Jim swallows, shuts her eyes tight a moment, and crosses her arms. She squeezes her upper arms. It’s not quite a hug, but certainly better contact than she’s felt since early summer.

A series of not-touches, almost-touches, and all-wrong touches.

So close she could taste Silver’s rum scented breath on deck under stars.

Livesey awkwardly clapping her shoulder when the entire company ran up top to see the island.

A hard kiss over treasure and murder.

And a hand around her wrist, dragging her deeper into the caves as the rock above them started to crumble.

The nights that were temperate, but cool, and she slept on Silver’s coat, sometimes with him, sometimes across from him in the remains of the fort.

When he had overtaken the rum-runner ( _shots on the beach outside the fort, Jim shaking inside, “I dueled the captain for the gold—and for you.”_ ) it was made clear that no one else was to go near her. Would they? She doesn’t think so. Men can be— _terrible_ , she knew from serving rough fishermen at the Benbow, but she was little more than a girl, and not one man ever gave her problems on the _Hispaniola_.

She isn’t—well, all right, she’s grown up, almost grown up. She’s sixteen, she assumes, surely they’re well into July by now.

Still, Silver had insisted she sleep in his cabin, and back on the ship her hammock is strung up across the room from his bed.

She kicks a rock in the way, and it gives far too easily, scampering off—a crab, not a rock, and she mumbles an apology as she sees it rush for cover.

This port smells terrible. An awful mixture of stink and smoke, and she can hear sounds of all kinds from the thin-walled buildings. Not a sober man or woman in sight, not even of their own crew, when she thinks she catches glimpses of them.

They’re pirates now, it’s what Silver said. Supplying in Nassau and then they’ll be headed out in the morning, for gold and blood.

Jim doesn’t know how she feels about that, but would like to take part in it. She wants to sail their little ship, but so far she has been regulated to the cabin mostly. A few times a week Silver lets her out on deck with him, and he’s watched her at the helm. Like a parent being sure their child doesn’t wander too far off. She kicks another rock, this time it actually _is_ a rock and it rolls across paving stones in a satisfying clatter.

He would watch her climb ratlines, and sit on the bowsprit, but never for too long.

She hates his quartermaster, a tall man with arms as wide as her head. _“Taking the pet for a walk,_ ” he had said. Jim wants to _sail_.

Silver told her to stay on the ship.

She doesn’t know _why_ , the crew all ran for the beach when they docked, and while she’s had enough of sand and tropical terrain for a lifetime, she wanted to see a pirate port in person. A pirate _town_ in person. Silver had told her stories of the free land of Nassau on the way from Bristol and it sounded like an adventure.

There’s a man and a woman doing _something_ in a dark space between two buildings; they’re making strange sounds. Jim gasps, and quickly crosses the narrow street.

Women are leaning out the windows of the building on the right, their stays and chemises so low it leaves little to wonder about, and she crosses her own arms again.

She never liked skirts or stays, and looking at these women— _women, some of them are my age_ —she doesn’t think she would even fit into the blouses they all fill so well. Her hair is short; she had cut off the matted little braid once they were on the rum-runner ship. The women in the teal building are smiling, some standing outside with the fiddle players, with their long hair down their backs, or pinned up high on their heads. One of them catches her watching.

“C’mon lad, we don’t bite none. There’s plenty a girls here would be nice for ya…” her blue eyes look so friendly as she coos at her, and she walks closer.

“I—Actually…I’m a bit lost. I’m good with directions! But my ship—our ship— _the_ ship, it’s in the bay, at the docks…and all the men came ashore…”

“Why, ‘e’s a _girl!_ Ladies, what a little a pearl we have here!” the blue eyed woman links arms with a dark skinned woman with the thickest, most impressive braids Jim has ever seen, ribbons woven through them.

“Thank you,” she stares at the ground, “But—I should go, I have to find…”

“What a shy l’ttle pearl!”

“Where did you come from?” the darker woman asks, leaving the other to approach Jim. “What ship took a girl like you to a place like this?” her and her friend exchange a look that goes from coy to concerned. “Did your father take you sailing?”

“No—no, ma’am, my parents are… It’s just me.”

“A stowaway!” Blue Eyes says with grand amusement.

“No! No, I—I’m here with my _friend_ he—“

“What sort of friend?” the woman with the braids cuts her off; Blue Eyes looks more like a frightened girl now. The expression on Braids and Ribbons is almost maternal. “Lovey, did someone _take_ you here?”

“He—he told me to stay on the ship—and now I’m _lost_ and…”

“Don’t you worry, he’s not going to find you here.”

_That’s a horrible thing to say to a lost person_ , Jim thinks angrily, but the worried look on the woman’s face makes her realize that’s not her point. _Oh no_.

“I’m _looking_ for him! I have no where else to go—and my clothes are dirty, and I have no money, and—“ she’s so angry at herself for it, but she starts to cry. “I don’t know what else to do! Stupid island and the stupid gold and _ship,_ and now I lost the only person in the whole _world_ who knows I exist—“

“Hush, none of that,” Braids and Ribbons nods to her friend, “Take Roberts for me, luv? He like you better anyway. I’ll take care of this,”

“No!” Jim protests but she already had a grip on her arm.

“Arlene—“, Blue Eyes tries to protest, but stops, shakes her head and walks back to a wobbly looking fellow standing with the small crowd in front of the tavern.

“I’m fine! I have to find him though, I have to—“ her chest hurts and nothing makes any sense, but Blue Eyes is gone and Braids and Ribbons— _Arlene_?—is walking—dragging—her back towards the rear of the building. “I-I don’t want to go inside.”

She’s ignored as they walk up past a set of saloon doors, up to a small entryway. Arlene turns a key and opens the door towards them.

“I can’t go—I have to find—“

“Your friend, I know,” she looks her up and down, as if trying to work out what exactly has happened to her, to this slip of a girl, to end up filthy and alone outside what Jim has realized is the same sort of house what she’s seen in Bristol by the docks there. Working women, Livesey had said, with equal parts pity and disgust. “Stay here then, talk to no one. I’ll bring you a clean shirt at least, and some water?”

Jim nodded dumbly. She’s given the woman enough trouble, the woman who’s only trying to _help_ her, and she doesn’t want to be any more of a problem than she’s been so far, costing her a—a _customer_ to Blue Eyes.

“Look like a stiff breeze would go right through you. I’ll bring you some bread too, alright?”

Jim obediently waits for Arlene, leaning against the wall of the opposite building, feeling it give slightly even against her slight weight. This whole island would vanish in a storm. She shudders. Arlene seems friendly. Perhaps she would be willing to listen to a story.

Maybe she would be willing to write a letter back to Grandma, letting her know that she was alive.

Or maybe she shouldn’t. Silver assured her that the doctor and squire must have been convinced she had turned pirate in order to set a trap that she was so likely to be caught in.

Grandma wouldn’t want a pirate for a granddaughter. Maybe the lie that Livesey fed her, if she indeed fed her a lie, would be that she had bravely fought the pirates and was killed in the thick of the action. Maybe…

Maybe she _should_ ask Arlene to help her post a letter. She just needs some paper, a pencil, not even ink.

A loud burst of the saloon doors makes her jump; there are jeers coming from inside as two people spill out into the night. It’s not Blue Eyes though this woman’s dress is of the same color—a man has his arm around her shoulders, and pulls her from the shadows to deeper into the alley, closer to where Jim leans against the other building, unseen and too frightened to move.

“Easy, sailor,” the woman says, encouragingly like you would speak to an obstinate pony. Before Jim can awkwardly laugh, the man pulls her up by the waist against the wall. She’s lifting her layered skirts up to her hips, her legs braced around the man’s hips.

“ _Captain_ , not sailor,” the man says, voice slurred, just before he moves to kiss the woman, but Jim recognizes it in an instant.

Her jaw drops slightly.

Silver’s arm around her waist on the island. Silver ruffling her hair as she stood at the helm. _Two months ago he kissed me on the mouth_ —

_But not like that_.

Her shock doesn’t likely last as long as she thinks it does, and the orange glow that the alley fills with when someone lights a lamp from a window above pushes her over the edge.

“What…” her voice wavers, but the man pulls away from the woman. “ _What are you doing_?”

“Jim?!”

“Oo’s Jim?” Sliver lets go of the woman and she falls to her feet.

“I told you to stay on the ship!”

“You— _What was_ —what was I _supposed_ to be?”

“What are you talking—”

“I—I wasn’t—I _wasn’t_ —I—“ something is deeply wrong with her, physically. Her guts feel like they’re about to crumble and her chest is tight, tighter, tighter, and she’s light headed.

“Go back to the bloody ship,” he says, but he sounds defeated.

“I— _I’m_ not—I’m not a…Long John, what _am I_?”

“ _You_ are in over your head, ‘s what you are, _go back to the—_ “

“I don’t know how to get back! I got _lost_! And _no one_ cares!”

It wasn’t true; Arlene, a stranger, cared about her, Arlene who would be wondering where she went if she ran off—

“Jim—“

“What was _wrong_ with me?” she didn’t do something right. She didn’t wear a skirt. She isn’t as tall as this woman or as curved as she is, and she doesn’t hang off of him, and she knows her laugh is annoying and shrill but she laughs around him anyway, and she’s just a _girl_.

She’s a washed up scrawny thing, of course he wouldn’t—

“ _Jim_ , go back to the beach.”

“No…”

“What was that?”

_“I SAID, NO!”_

The attention of several patrons is aroused, and a few men, and more women lean out from the saloon doors. One greying sailor, and Blue Eyes at his side each have a gun drawn.

“What’s going on here?”

“Fuck if I know,” the woman that Silver had brought out wanders back towards the front of the tavern, where the fiddle players continue some song about drinking or dying or both.

“What the _hell_ are you—“

“Why didn’t…. what’s—“ but there are so many eyes on her that Jim wants to vanish. Arlene comes back out the door, a shirt draped over her arm, and a goblet in her other hand. Jim shakes her head at her.

She runs.

Past the laughing crowd, past Silver, down the main street and she trips as the worn path turns to sand, and lands on her hands.

It’s sand, no rocks like the beaches back in England, and she’s not cut or scraped, but the pain in her chest hasn’t gone away as the motion of Silver lifting the woman up against he wall plays over and over. The anger and disgust on his face by lamplight. _He thinks I’m just a stupid child_.

She _is_ just a stupid child.

The preacher’s daughter married last summer. She was the age Jim is now; the groom not much older. They moved to a cottage on the other side of the valley, and every time Jim saw her, she looked so _smug_. As if she was now a grown up and _knew_ things. There was talk of course, it was legal fine, but the girl was young. Still, others claimed it was better that they do it _right_ than run off. Whatever that meant.

She’s not a child by _age_ , exactly. She doesn’t know what she is. Stupid. Immature and whiny, annoying and— _what did Dr. Livesey call me? Inquisitive?_ —nothing _good_.

She wonders if the woman Silver had chosen back there was smart as paint. It was about all she herself had going for her in this world. She’s weeping, rough, ugly sobs, but it takes her several minutes of crying to notice it, and by then the inability to stop crying distracts her from the pain in her chest.

Gentle, lapping waves that sound almost (nothing) like laugher mock her while she sits in the sand and looks out, noticing for the first time since thinking she was lost just how close the town was to the rickety docks.

There’s a light breeze and she can see flags in the moonlight on the ships. How proud all these pirates are! They keep their colors up even when they’re away. She picks out the _Walrus_ flag from them, and shakily makes her way to the docks.

* * *

The sound of the deck under her disgusting shoes. Stars, starts on deck, and Silver teaching her magic tricks.

_He kissed me!_

What the hell did that mean? He kissed the bloody parrot too; seconds after kissing her, he ran over, pinched the bird’s beak and kissed the top of its head, “Castle! Cottage! Hens!”

No _wonder_ there were so many nights where he had dismissed her to the far corners of the fort. She was so _clingy_ on the island, so _embarrassing_ , that she had clung to his shirt in her sleep, and hid her face under his chin—moments where her lips might brush at his neck by accident, _did that count as a kiss_?

No wonder too, that he had tossed a hammock towards her and made her hang in it in the cabin. _He never really wanted me_. _He never really liked me._

She undresses, takes fresh seawater from a bucket she hauled up earlier, and scrubs herself as clean as she can get, and tries to wash her clothes. They’re hung to dry in the low rafters of the ceiling, and she looks forlornly to her rough canvas hammock. She hates the feeling of canvas against her skin.

It’s not _fair_ , how bad she wants to reach out to him. It’s not fair that she wants to hold onto him, try to kiss him again, and maybe she doesn’t, but she surely doesn’t want to think about him with the other woman.

How is it possible to feel this much, feel like her heart was going to burst and collapse at the same time, when the person she feels it for _doesn’t feel at all_?

It’s not possible, that’s the simple answer. She thinks over moments, sketches of time and convinces herself of almost-touches that probably would never have happened, times he smiled at her that he probably didn’t, and then convinces herself that he must _adore_ her.

Then she convinces herself of the opposite, that this whole mess has all been in her head. She’s not special.

She was just _there_.

No one else to talk to, to teach about stars, no one else around to kiss.

_But he wanted to split the treasure with me!_

_….because I was the only one without friends in the crew._

She goes back and forth, sniffling, and hating herself for sniffling, until she’s too tired to stand.

She gives her clean-ish blouse a pinch. Still wet.

Perhaps if she could get drunk, she might feel better, but she doesn’t know how much it would take to get drunk, and doesn’t want Silver to come and see her drunk. She feels like heaving at the thought of him seeing her crying.

Doesn’t matter. She knows in her broken, pathetic heart that he won’t be back tonight. He was with a woman. She knows enough about what men want from women and what women do with men to have a vague idea of him, a hazy visual in her head of him holding her against the wall, of him—taking _pleasure_ from her.

She feels her arms break out in gooseflesh, and lays down on his bed. Just because her clothes are wet! Because she can’t sleep in the rough hammock.

The sheets smell stale smell like him smell _like his coat on the floor of the fort_.

She buries herself in his bed, fleece blanket and linen sheets against her and the lumpy straw mattress below her and rolls over to press her face into his pillow. She tries not to keep crying, can’t have tears all over his things, can’t let him know she was weeping while he was enjoying himself.

There’s a mirror across the cabin, and as she sits up, she sees herself in it. The breasts that had appeared in the past couple years and still surprised her to see. Hair under her arms, she sees as she stretches, and a slightly more mature angle to her cheekbones—true, she still had a childish, round face, and her eyes were too big but—she’s not a _baby_ , even if she’s been crying like one. Sitting up like this, her legs to the side, her unnatural eyes—changeling eyes, some ruder guests called them—she looks a bit like a mermaid. Not a beautiful human woman, but perhaps pretty enough to tempt a pirate. Pretty enough….

With a deep breath, or perhaps a sigh, she climbs out of the bed, crosses the cabin, and pulls down the hammock, leaving it on the floor. Jim looks down at it, resolute, and turns on her heel.

She climbs back into his bed, and pinches out the lamp.

She falls into a fitful sleep.

* * *

“What are you doing, cabin girl?”


	2. Prizes

“What are you doing, cabin girl?”

Jim doesn’t have an answer. She’s half asleep, and had thought for sure that Silver wouldn’t have returned until the morning: sated perhaps, but angry at her outburst, her childish behavior, unfit of a sailor, of a pirate. Slow as the tide, slow as the gentle rocking of their ship, her thoughts wriggle back into accessible memory.

She sits up, clutching the sheets to her chest.

Silver’s eyebrows knit and then relax.

“Move over,”

“I—I can put—“

“Move over, go back to sleep.”

Jim curls up into a ball, her back to him, and the knots inside her tighten, her chest hurts again, but it no longer feels like it’s cracked. Some vile, terrible, addictive thing has returned with a burning heat: hope, perhaps. There’s a tug at the blankets, and Silver is behind her; he smells of wine, and is presumably fully clothed, including his prosthetic.

“I thought you would still be with—your…friend.”

“She wasn’t a friend, girl. Just a woman.”

“Did you find her after I left?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not,”

“You wanted to— _lie_ with her.” Silver scoffs at her not-question.

“Wasn’t gonna be any _lying_ about it. Not with my leg.”

“How come?”

“I’m _drunk_ , Jim. Leave me alone.”

She says nothing else.

Like the night on the deck of her old schooner, stars, stars, _stars_ , his warmth close enough to feel, daring her to touch…and just like that night, she doesn’t.

But she’ll be damned if she ever sleeps in that hammock again.

The morning comes and goes, and Silver grumbles as he rises, changes his shirt, and limps out presumably to the head. Jim waits until he locks the cabin door behind him, and sits up slowly in bed. Nothing seems to have changed; Silver always rose around this time, and her soon after.

There’s no change of clothes for her, but she roots through the things he has inherited from the captain he dispatched on the island, and there’s a shirt that looks shorter than the others, one meant to be worn under a vest. Jim pulls it on, and considers herself in the mirror. The sleeves have been cut off, but it’s still too big—easy enough, she unbuttons the lower half, and ties it snug at her navel.

Trousers—hers aren’t dry yet in the humid island air, so she looks around. There’s a pair of sailors’ pants, but they’re far too long. With a no-nonsense air, she takes scissors out of a desk drawer and cuts them to her length, almost evenly; there’s a few loose threads, and she ties them all in double knots to keep them from fraying any more before she can sew them proper. The mirror shows her a shabby sailor girl, but it’s enough.

The dead captain could read better than Silver, and Jim takes down one of his books, and tries to read to kill time before Silver comes by to wordlessly drop off her midday rations.

Later he comes by to let her walk to the deck, slip away to the head, and then back to the cabin where she’s locked inside. He doesn’t need to; she doesn’t think so. The crew wouldn’t be so bold as to try anything untoward to the girl he already declared to be under his protection. _Young woman_ , Jim corrected herself, looking at herself sideways in the mirror and half wishing for stays to hold her breasts in place. They’re small enough to be unseen under the loose top of the shirt, but she doesn’t care much for the silhouette. The trousers are loose about her backside too, and she looks, as she did in her father’s, quite shapeless and blobby.

With a pout, she notes that she never gave a damn about how she looked from any other side but her front when she was back home.

* * *

Her daily routine doesn’t change, nor does her nightly routine, save for the new sleeping arrangements. Silver tells her to move over if she isn’t as far from him as she can get, and she doesn’t face him. He undresses down to his drawers, even taking off his false leg, but she keeps all her clothes on.

Three days pass like this before Jim wakes in the middle of the night, pressed close to him on his side of the bed as he snores. She freezes, like getting caught stealing, and once satisfied that he’s still asleep, she nestles close again taking comfort in his warmth.

* * *

It’s awful, the ache in her chest dulled now that they’re at sea again— _hunting for prizes_ , but she doesn’t dwell on it. And the unexpected _something_ she feels in her stomach, in her— _places_ that weren’t to be spoken off—places that don’t itch or hurt when he’s close but do something else entirely. Not something she’s used to feeling. Sore, perhaps, but she hasn’t bled for a couple days now and perhaps it was only left over from that.

Unlikely, it feels nothing like any monthly pains she’s ever known.

She lies against him, settles with her head close to his shoulder, and falls back asleep.

She’s awoken not much later by the weight of a man lying on her.

Silver is on top of her, staring down at her eyes in the faint, grey moonlight that barely peaks into the cabin. The shock is momentary, for both of them, when his lips brush at her throat.

Like a mystery solved, her arms wrap around him tight and her lips ignorantly seek his out. He catches them, kissing her, kissing her like he did before, then kissing her as he was kissing that woman in the alley. He’s tugging at one of her legs, pulling it aside, his hips to hers, and something is pressing against her down there where she neither hurts nor itches, but—she’s sure now— _burns_.

“We start this, girl—“ he cuts himself off with his mouth over hers again. This time his hand leaves her thigh to hold her jaw at slight slant: it makes her lips part, and his tongue passes her lips. Jim hastily leans back into the pillow trying to avoid it, trying to avoid gagging. Silver doesn’t seem to notice, but pushes his hips against hers harder. “We do this _now_ , I’m not going t’stop…An’ I’m going to want this…again,” he’s kissing down her throat now, that hand between them, tugging open the loose buttons of her shirt, and his lips close around the most delicate center of her breast, “An’ again, an’ again…”

How _strange!_ But her hand is on the back of his neck, and despite the terrible newness of it, she cannot stop smiling.

“I don’t know how to do anything.”

Silver pushes off of her, balancing unevenly on his right knee and the remaining part of his left leg, and looks down at her.

“Lift your arse.”

“Why?” she obeys, and instead of answering, he pulls her trousers off. His own drawers are only shoved down, and in the dark she can hardly see more than a shadow of hair, and something made of flesh, before he’s over her again.

Silver’s mouth is moving over hers again, and her arms are around him again. His frame so much _different_ than anyone else’s she’s ever hugged—his muscles, his bones, his scars—and there are so _many_. There’s a couple roundish ones she fees that might even be _bullet_ scars and she wants to see them desperately but before she can ask him, he’s _touching her_.

His right hand is between her legs, his fingers doing something with a bit of her she has down there that she discovered in the bath a couple years ago.

“H-How did you know—“

“Know?” he’s rubbing at it now, and she’s _squirming_ because—

 _Oh_. Other women all have more or less the same bits. And he’s certainly been with a— _few_.

“What are you…?”

“I’m a-thinkin’ this’ll be easier if you come first.”

“If I—“ _holy lord in heaven_.

He keeps _touching_ her. Her legs try to close around his hand but he’s between them, holding them open, and the _sounds_ both from his actions, and the sounds coming from her throat as she reaches that wild sensation she occasionally indulges in when she does it for herself—but never like this.

Never this _quick_ with her own hands, and soon he’s stroking his fingers between her folds, leaving the little bud alone in favor of—

“ _Wait—_ “

—his finger sliding into her.

“What?” he rubbed her again with his thumb, a second finger trying to press its way in, but she’s—

“I don’t—“ don’t want it? She isn’t sure that’s true. She can feel his wet fingers trying to coax her into doing _something_ , and she knows what _he_ wants to be doing but—“I have no _idea_ what I’m doing. I don’t—“

“This’ll be more fun if you relax.”

“…Fun?” _for who?_ She wants to ask, but he starts rubbing her again and her thighs are shaking.

“That’s a girl,” he says, as the dark twin of the sensation of doing it to herself washes over her. Not a comforting warm tide, but a storm driven wave.

“Do you want to—Don’t you want me?”

“Relax, darlin’,” he kisses her again, her eyes are wide open. He’s shifting about between her legs, pressed against her in a way that almost forces her to spread her legs farther, hold to his hips with her knees. “You c’n bring your legs up, if ’s easier…”

“What are you doing now? Are we—we’re going to have sex now?”

The sound that comes from him might be a laugh, but he’s right at her, _just_ outside her, and with a shove, and a feeling like her skin will split, he’s inside her.

Jim yelps, more from shock than from the pain.

Silver hasn’t moved. Jim bites her lip as her arms tighten around him, his face in her neck. The part of him in her is hot and has a _pulse_ and she feels _tighter_ now. She feels like she’s getting away with stealing. She’s lying with him. She squeezes him tighter. _Mine mine mine mine mine mine_ _mine mine mine…._

She can see Livesey in her head, telling her explicitly to never let Silver touch her. She can hear the worried tone of Arlene in Nassau.

The sting of pain fades, and then Silver pulls himself out of her almost entirely

“Wait! Not—“

—And immediately shoves back into her with an unappealing grunt.

“What’s…” she winces, their connection makes sounds, and the tug and stretching at her entrance _hurt_. “Is this—this is how it’s done?”

“No one ever _told_ you how? You’re bloody grown.”

“I—I know— _OH!—_ How, I just—I didn’t know there’s _moving_ involved…” she hums, not pleased but—there’s a feeling, an unfamiliar one of pressure where the pain had been each time he sheaths himself fully in her. “What’s that—“

“You— _do_ know what _this_ is, don’t ya?” he slows a moment, the creaking of the wooden bunk subsiding, and distantly Jim wonders if the crew can hear it.

“Your…your manhood. I know what _that_ is—THAT! What’s that?”

“What’re you _talkin’—about?”_

“It—it doesn’t tickle. But it—it _feels_ so much…”

Silver laughs, and starts moving again, faster this time. A sound escapes her lips that could be mistaken, even by her, for agony but it’s for something _else_ entirely.

“ _That_ you’re feelin’….is _pleasure_.”

“ _Pleasure_ …” she hums back. His cock hits some spot inside her and she swallows a moan, _how long does this last_?

“You’ve got…the tightest little— _hell—_ tightest little trap I’ve ever f-felt—“

She would, under any other circumstance, immediately ask him if that was bad or not, but he’s _trembling_ , and her words won’t form right, and every muscle from her heart to her insides and then down her thighs is wound tight and shaking.

If this goes on, she’s not sure how she’ll live. She has no idea what she’s saying, or doing, as she grips his shoulders. It’s not quite the same as him touching her, or even touching herself, but this is _a lot_. Silver making the same sounds he would in reply to tasting something particularly good, and other sounds she’s never heard a man—or anyone—make.

* * *

“ _Mine_ ,” –someone says, but neither is sure who.

* * *

Silver lets out a startled noise as if he’s been shocked by something quite disarming, and the part of him in her _releases_. Jim winces. _Very_ strange feeling.

Another minute—or hour—and Silver rolls off of her. He breathes heavily, and Jim tries to match. The tingle of nerves, the dull pain, the cut-off of her last _feeling_ before it was fully reached hovers and vanishes. No matter. During the day he’ll go back to work again, and she’ll have time to kill, and she knows what she’ll be doing, over and over and over…

“Wondered that from the day I met you, cabin girl.”

“That I’m small?”

He groans a bit at that, turns over, an arm tossed over her waist.

“Nah. Wondered if I ever laid you, would you keep talking the whole time, or actually stop for a few minutes.”

“Oh. But I didn't talk the _whole_ time--”

“Should’ve known you would.” He sounds deeply amused, instead of annoyed, and flashes Jim a brief, sharp grin.

Four years ago, there was a little festival in the village for May Day. Jim hit a target with a toy arrow, nearer to the mark than any of the other children, even those older than her. For her efforts, she was given a small seal carved out wood with painted eyes. All the other children looked at her with envy, but it didn’t matter what they thought. She had the seal all to herself. Hers, she had clutched it to her heart the whole walk back to the inn. She wasn’t the biggest or oldest or prettiest but she _won_.

She wriggles closer the snoring pirate behind her and with a contented smile on her face, holds his hand to her chest.


	3. Addicted

Dawn looks in on them slowly, Jim notes. The sunbeams playful; they’re bashful to witness the sight of her and Silver’s trousers on the floor, of a rag that he had cleaned them both off with, and of them, still bare and still asleep at such a late hour.

Silver didn’t intent to _lie down_ with the woman on Nassau, Jim thinks smugly, still clutching his hand to her bare chest in elated victory. It must make her better.

She isn’t so innocent as to think a man must be _friendly_ with a woman to want her, but surely it must help, and Silver has remained her friend. They _talk_ when he brings her midday rations. She keeps his logbook at night, seeing as he can’t write much on his own. She’s his trusted companion.

Fine, he has a quartermaster, he has a first officer, second officer. There’s a boatswain too. But none of them know _all_ the numbers: not even the quartermaster, who according to his rank (Jim knows) _should_. Only her. Silver trusts her and he doesn’t trust the crew: why else keep the door locked all the time?

With this sense of superiority, she shifts her shoulders, getting closer yet to him, presses her back to him.

And she feels the part of him that he had torn her maidenhead with pressing against her—a swift gasp escapes her.

“… _Silver_?”

No answer.

She turns over, careful to stay under his arm, not sure how she’d react if he stopped holding her now. His eyes are still shut, but his breathing less even.

There’s a razor in the locked drawer of his desk, the one that doesn’t actually lock very well, the one she took the scissors from—maybe he’ll shave if she asks. He would be much easier to kiss but—

She considers him in the dim light; she _does_ like him with a beard and mustache, and she can’t quite picture him without them. The scratchy way they feel against her lips is unpleasant, but as she kisses at his cheeks, his neck, and then his mouth, catching at his lower lip like he had when drawing back from her last night…it almost tickles.

“…Jim?”

“You can—have me again if you want.”

“ _What_.” It doesn’t sound like a question, but Jim’s confused: he’s _hard_ , and he told her last night that wanted to do it again— _he said that before we did it, what if he didn’t like it what if he doesn’t—_

It had _hurt_ but the idea of never doing it with him again, of _not_ having this with him was _intolerable_.

She tries to kiss him again, pokes her tongue between his lips and tries to do what he had done to her, but it’s all wrong.

“Jim—“

“You felt— _ready_ ,” she explains, and curiosity acts before her better senses kick in: she reaches her hand under the blanket, to his length. _That was **inside** me! _Her lip curls in a bit of disgust, but she wraps her fingers around him, almost scientific in her considerations. She applies a bit of pressure, but Silver inhales and grabs for her wrist.

“Sorry!”

But he doesn’t move her off of him. His hold on her wrist loosens slightly, and guides her hand up and down him. It twitches.

“Roll over,” he mutters at her ear, and she listens, lying on her back again as he maneuvers over her.

The ache is different this time, not sharp and far less surprising. That feeling he told her was pleasure starts after a minute, and she holds onto him again.

“So ready for _me_ ,” he says, slowing his motions enough to roughly kiss her throat and speak at her ear: “My girl…” he catches her earlobe between his teeth, and it makes her breath hitch as he picks up the pace again.

It’s more of the same, but Jim almost thinks she came close to feeling something like he does. The memory plan from last night, to spend today indulging in touching the nerves that would make her _feel_ like that makes her walls shake around him.

Silver gets off of her, finds the rag again and cleans off, considers it a moment and tosses it aside instead of handing it to her. On his crutch, he crosses the room to where his (their) clothes are, and finds the scraps she had cut off of the trousers she had found, and hands her one.

Jim wipes at the worst of the mess, but thinks she’d like to ask for a bucket of sea water again to clean up proper. Silver dresses, puts on his false leg, and ties back his hair. She sits up and quickly reaches for her clothes too; closing and re-buttoning the shirt she was still wearing.

“Where are you going?” he asks, apparently amused by _something_.

“With you?”

“Told you before, stay—in here.”

At least he pauses when he says it. Jim huffs with her arms crossed as he walks out, and locks the cabin door behind him.

It’s _petulant_ , she knows that, but surely she’s sailor enough. Pirate enough. She learned so much on the _Hispaniola_ , and she wants to name this ship too—it must be bad luck to sail on an unnamed vessel. He trusts her to keep his ship in line on the page, why not on deck too?

Jim rolls her stiff shoulders, rubs the back of her neck, and stands on wobbly legs to go for the dead captain’s books again.

* * *

The door rattles, but before Jim can fully form the fear that someone had taken the keys from Silver by force, it swings wide open.

“What have you done to me, cabin girl?” No sooner does Silver enter, he hastily locks the door again and turns to her,

“It’s barely noon,” she says, from the desk chair. A book of maps of the English coasts open before her, a compass and pencil in her hand as she toys with paths she would sail if she could still sail back to a home that wanted her. Normally he wouldn't come by for another hour.

“Undress,” he throws his jacket to the floor, and unties the sash belt his pistol is tucked into.

“ _What_?”

“You’ve—I’ve only got the hour and so off-watch, I’m not wasting any more time,” he’s already taking his leg off, and Jim walks, confused back to the bunk. She looks up to him but her eyes fall to the lump in his trousers, unmistakable.

“I don’t think I’m...ready,” she says, but feels the same as she did this morning as he guided her touch of him.

“You never finished this morning—see to that first,”

“Wait how…? You mean--" Jim can't _fathom_ why he doesn't just do what he wants. "You mean I should...touch myself?”

“ _Yes_.”

“But you’re watching me.”

Silver rolls his eyes; Jim pouts.

“Then lay down and I’ll do it for you,” more befuddled than submissive, Jim lays back as Silver plops down beside her on the bunk, his hand diving into her drawers and rubbing at her until she groans at the feeling, sucking in air through her teeth.

“'Not ready,' you're _sopping_ , luv." before she can tell him she needs another moment, just enough to fully catch up to what's going on, he speaks again, lower: "You’ve put a curse on me, you bloody _siren_ ,”

“I’m not a siren. That’s _stupid_ ,” he called her pretty _twice_ , but surely she’s not—not _that_ pretty. “And I didn’t do anything to you!”

“Can’t stop _thinking_ about the sounds you make…”

She whines as if on cue while she comes down; and Silver sighs, sliding a finger, two fingers inside, trying for three but stopping as she closed her thighs around his hand. He works them both back to the position she had been in this morning, last night.

“Should have started this _ages_ ago,” he says as he sinks into her.

“I wanted you to.” Jim says, numb below her waist, out of body but for her hands on his chest: her fingers dance softly over each of his bird tattoos. It's not quite the truth, regardless of her assumption that her physical symptoms around him on the _Hispaniola_ were indicative of her body's want for this, she's not totally sure that she wouldn't have run from him if he had tried this. 

“I would have done _anything_ you wanted…”

Jim considers it. Smiles. If he’s this _affected_ by her…forget working as a sailor, she could navigate them around the world. Travel and explore with her best friend by her side—

“Kiss me.”

“Hmm?”

“Anything I wanted? Well. _Now_ I want you to kiss me.”

He laughs, but kiss her he does, and kiss her, and kiss her. As he fucks her at a different angle, her arms snake around his neck, and she falls apart below him. Their lips sputter apart unattractively but Jim groans hard as she feels every nerve in her crash into a deep blue, and Silver smiles wide down at her.

“…You didn’t finish yet?” she hears her voice say. “Keep going.”

He kisses her again, rough and artless, movements to match, well through her second climax until he’s done.

“Better this time?” the smugness in his voice makes her want to tell him _no_ , but she can’t. Everywhere he’s touching her is _burning_. Like lightning, like a _storm_ in her blood, her heart all thunder as she struggles to keep eye-contact with him.

“We’re going to do that again later, right?” her eyes are wide, dreamy.

“Darlin’ you won’t be walkin’ straight when I’m done with you tonight.”

Jim shakes through a latent wave at his words, but something else occurs to her too:

“Let me work on deck with you.”

“…No,”

_“Why not?!”_

“Don’t bring it up now,”

“ _When_? You know I’m a good sailor _and_ a good navigator _and_ I’m stronger than I look _and_ I—“

“Jim—“

“Please. Just give me an order? _Anything_ , I’ll do it!”

“Alright. Your orders: Last bell. Be right here, on you back, naked, and,” he taps her nose as a gesture more befitting of a child than the woman he shares a bed with now and she smacks his hand, “Be ready for me.” He takes her quiet moan as an affirmative response, and dresses. She watches, getting a look at him in full daylight for the first time. Not as appealing as he felt, at least his bits weren’t. Unsettling looking, but the _rest_ of him now…Silver had a way of carrying himself as if he was smaller than he was, but he’s got the musculature of any sailor. She wonders if he could carry her.

Once dressed, he leaves.

The door locks again.

“This isn’t bloody over…” she says to no one in particular as she reaches for a rag.


	4. Costumes

**Two weeks later....**

She’s in his coat.

She likes this coat, it’s not as familiar or comforting as the coat made of eastern rugs that she slept on before the ship landed on their miserable island, but it’s a fine coat. Dark red, like wine, like blood, it doesn’t show it’s plethora of stains of either. The black cording feels stiff and new still, and the buttons feature little skulls. He sewed the buttons on himself, stripping the ones that had been on it first, English crosses.

The silk lining feels nice against her skin.

She’s in his coat, and nothing else.

No, a lie, she’s got a few layers of gold necklaces on, pearls in her ears, and gold around each wrist and ankle. A belt of gold link chain she wrapped around herself twice before linking. It’s snug about her hips, but the idea is there. His coat, and his fine-feathered hat.

Jim has a bottle of his brandy too; she’s been drinking from it straight to banish the nerves that twist in her belly in both fear and anticipation of what’s going to unfold when he opens that door.

The nerves knot almost to nausea at the worry he’ll be angry. Cool evening air (damp, they’re in for rain, or storm) caresses her breasts making her nipples tighten into hard, sensitive buds. She wonders if he’ll use his hands or mouth on them first. She wonders if he’ll treat her the same through this storm as he did in the last: riding out half of it on deck with his crew, the second half with his head in her lap, a most glorious distraction.

She sits on the same chair that she did then; her legs outstretched and uncrossed so he can see her _there_ too. Fully displayed, but for the stockings she had on up to her knees because her feet were cold. She takes another swig. One of his swords in her other hand, a fancy one, one that he kept because it was pretty ( _he thinks I’m pretty_ ) but declared useless for battle.

A shudder works its way through her shoulders and down her spine to her core. It’s not as if they haven’t made a habit of this. It’s not as if she isn’t, she thinks, possessively, walking about with bruises on her neck and thighs from last night, and he with his own matching ones. Months wondering why he never touched her, months of thinking she wasn’t quite enough until she tore down her hammock, and retired to his bed. Days since then of Silver wanting her morning and nigh. At the very least, he likes her, he wants her, and she likes him.

And, strangest of all, she finds herself unable to have enough of him.

The thought makes her flush, and she’s midway through a gulp of bandy when Silver kicks open the door. He slams it shut behind him with a curse, gripping the lock tight as shoves an iron key off his belt into it.

“Good evening _Long_ John…” she tries to sound playful, but the words come out silly, almost tipsy—though she doesn’t think she’s been drinking long enough to be so affected yet.

“What in the blazes is this?”

“Undress,” her voice wavers, uneven with alcohol and concern, but she finds strength in his confusion. “And get on your back,” she nods towards the bed they’ve both used for a fortnight.

“ _What_?”

“You heard what I said,” she sets down the brandy, and points the sword tip at him, close enough to tug at his scarf. “Undress. Completely. And lie down.”

“And what happens if I don’t?” his anger seems to have ebbed, and she relaxes a breath.

“Then I’ll have to take you where you stand, but I’m shorter than you, so it won’t be easy or very enjoyable.”

“And if I say I want you bent over my desk instead?”

How absurd, she thinks, that he calls it his desk. He can’t read or write, and from the first nights on this schooner, he has run numbers while she fills his logs. It’s the only thing on this ship that belongs to both of them equally. She intends to claim her share of the bed tonight too.

“Later. Get to work.” She watches him, close observation. His trousers get tighter as he shrugs off a jacket, scarf, hat, and vest. They stay where they fall on the cabin floor. She rests the cutlass across the arms of her chair, takes another swig of his brandy. While he’s occupied with the straps holding on his false leg, she reaches down to check her own progress. She’s not surprised at all to find that she’s quite ready, despite the nerves.

Silver catches her eye when she looks up; she maintains eye contact with him while she continues testing just _how_ ready she is. Even with his steady, daring gaze, only one of her own fingers slip in with ease; she’s wet, but tight, and any hopes of relaxing are gone as he breaks from her stare and shoves off his trousers, drawers.

_He’s_ certainly ready; leaning against the bed, hand on his length, stroking himself.

Every one of her core muscles tighten. She tries to speak, but nothing comes out. Another swallow of brandy.

“I _said_ , I want you on your back. _Cook_.”

“ _What_ did you just call me?!” he stops his previous motions, a flash of confused anger on his face. She doesn’t doubt that if he wanted to kill her, he could, one leg and unarmed or not.

“Captain’s orders,” she tells him, tossing his hat aside but keeping the coat on as she crowds him against the side of the bed, and shoves him backwards onto it. He loses his balance on one leg easily, and with a snarl that almost makes her afraid, immediately pushes himself back up to a seated position.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, girl…”

“Oh, I know _exactly_ what I’m going to do.” She doesn’t. Not this tense. Not when he’s lain her down on her back twice a night, enjoying himself or else doing things to her with his mouth that she’s quite sure only pirates know.

“Jim?”

With a hesitant hand she pushes him back. She aches for it, truly, but there’s no turning back from the show now, no lying down and telling him to take over. She’s no girl, her birthday come and gone, she’s a pirate’s woman now, and she wants to act like it.

“Well, _Captain_ ,” he taunts, “What is it you’re thinking about?”

“I’m thinking you won’t be walking straight in the morning,” it’s one of his lines, and she doesn’t even know if men can be affected like that. She’s seen him walk awkwardly when he’s getting hard; sometimes she’ll say something, and he’ll respond by telling her to go back to his cabin. The more she thinks on it, she spends _quite_ a lot of time in here, not…that she wants to complain. It’s been _unreal_ , how he makes her feel, what he’s made her into.

A hungry, pretty girl into a monster always starving for _more_.

She kneels over him, straddles his waist, trying to avoid his cock for now, and leans down to kiss him. His lips are slack, subordinate to her own instead of the roughness she’s come to expect from them, and she clumsily leads into a deeper kiss, letting her tongue taste the rum and mint and lime of his mouth, and the metallic of a silver molar. He claimed the real one he broke biting down wood while Flint’s surgeon sawed of the shredded remains of his leg.

This is familiar territory, and his hand in her hair, angling her head just right even as she leads is a comfort. She likes kissing him, wishes he’d do it more. His other hand on one of her exposed breasts, thumb roving over the stiff bud; she hums into the kiss, and he gropes her harder. She tears away from him, sits up, seizing both his wrists, to keep his hands at her breasts, and enjoying the shiver it gives her. She could finish herself off like this, just him touching her and a bit of pressure lower down, but she’s made it this far and doesn’t want to back out now.

She lifts one of his hands off herself and kisses his palm, his fingers, the gunpowder scars on his right hand. She wonders which hand he has killed more men with; probably the right hand, the one he uses the most, the one he touches her with.

She wonders if she’s a worse person than he is because she kisses it again. It’s a tender gesture, it’s gentle, and she knows she promised him something like what he’ll do if he would come in here during the day, hard from the memory of her, accusing her of witchcraft and spells, siren, selkie, sorceress, stammering out her name and all sorts of titles that hovered between unholy adoration and sheer annoyance.

There’s no easy way to do it, so she takes a breath and avoids his eyes as she tries to lift herself high enough off her knees to get his shaft lined up with her entrance. She tries, and misses with a cringe, unable to look at his face. She quickly reaches down instead with a hand around him, and guides him inside.

“You’ve learned,” he groans, at her touch, his hands on her hips, an admiring smile at the feel of the gold chains she’s wearing around her hips. He holds her tighter and she feels a couple links snap on one of the chains.

“Only what you’ve taught me,” she replies, rocking gently forward and back. She’s not confident in her ability to ride him, especially when he’s lying back so far and she can’t use his shoulders to brace herself, steady herself.

Jim bites her lip, he’s hard still, humming quiet, pleased sounds, but this isn’t the treatment that he usually gives to her, nor the excitement that her welcome must have promised. Her nerves get the better of her, and she tenses around him.

Silver grips her tight and pulls her up, shifting the angle. He nods at her, almost imperceptivity, but she understands. They have that, some unsaid understanding in so many areas, this included.

“Like this?” she tries to tense again, flexing her inner muscles in rhythm to her motions, and it starts to feel good to her. It always _does_ , it always feels like something stolen, and the mere fact that she’s doing this, doing this with him, and making him feel good always feels so _nice_ , even when she hasn’t come yet herself.

“ _Good girl_ ,” he grunts, but there’s something like a smile on his lips and she grins, _I’m doing it right_.

She tries to go faster, tries to move rougher, harder, but it doesn’t feel like enough, and with a bashfulness that she shouldn’t have anymore, she tries to reach above the point she joins him, and drive herself to her own end. He can feel her shaking through the motions, his head thrown back with a hiss. A long, slow build and she almost fails to push herself over, but eventually she manages to fall under in a soft, almost disappointing wave.

Its enough for him apparently, as he gasps, reaches up to hold her still, hold her tight, as he finishes in her, but she keeps moving. To her surprise, he lets her.

“That’s— darlin’, that’s it…” she doesn’t stop until he feels almost limp to her, but doesn’t move either. Silver sighs deeply, raises himself up on his elbows, and groans at the shift. She grins down at his expression, almost as confused as when she started; his smile is almost boyish.

“I did it right?”

“Aye, _Captain_ ,” there’s not much of the earlier haughtiness in the tease, and it’s Jim’s turn to look confused. She had already forgotten the coat, the ruse, the game at hand. He considers her look, and she isn’t sure what he’s thinking as he pushes up into her a little, raising his hips under hers. He makes an affirmative sound. “Start moving again, lass…and I’ll be ready in a minute,”

“You want me to do it again?” he doesn’t usually have it in him to go twice at a time, even when she does.

“Not now; I believe I told you I’ll fuck you over my desk.”

“ _Your_ desk?”

“We did it yesterday,” he continues to move up under her, and it makes her body react even when she’s trying to focus on what he’s saying.

“ _You_ don’t have a desk.”

It takes Silver a moment to think of what she’s getting at. Jim can see the answer arrive in his mind through his eyes alone.

“ _Our_ desk, cabin girl?” he asks, incredulous.

“You are _welcome_ to have me over _our_ desk.” He smiles, teeth harsh in the low light, reminding her of a cat, a wolf, a wolf in a story, _stay on the path, avoid the forest, never speak to wolves_. “Only on the condition that I can have you on _our bed_ tomorrow morning too.”


	5. Navigating With Inconstant Stars

He had relented then, as she gripped his desk, his hands on her hips.

“Let me work.”

“You want to work on deck? Midshipman Hawkins.”

“Navigator Hawkins, nothing else… _Captain_ Silver,” she grinned as he came, his title doing such things to him and making her laugh.

“Navigator Hawkins…” he rest his head on her shoulder, breathed her title out and her name in.

* * *

And it has been _terrible_. The sun, the heat, and getting sick from how the rocking of the ship makes the crow’s nest toss. Silver meant for her to be part of the crew and she worked alongside them. Hauling ropes and having to give orders in regards to navigation, Silver correcting her snidely when she named a wrong piece of rigging—or the worst of it, when she had called the flying jib the outer jib and Silver wouldn’t let her out of the cabin until she could recite each sail and it’s location with her eyes shut. _You tell a sailor about a snapped shroud on the fore-royal yard but you mean the main royal, you could get a man killed. You could get yourself killed_. She didn’t begrudge him of it, but she hated the reminder that she was still _learning_.

She had been such a clever child, she doesn’t know what happened. She used to learn things immediately, but now Silver has to tell her the same thing over and over before it finally _sticks_. She sighs. She’ll learn. It’s only been a summer.

Half a year a dozen more lifetimes since leaving Bristol.

But _still_ it has been the greatest fun she’s had in her entire life. The ocean spray and open skies. She proudly takes orders from no one but the captain, smiling at her grumbling fellow sailors who had been less than welcoming to her joining them. Fine. If she only has one friend on this ship, then so be it.

Silver still pulls her back to the cabin sometimes around midday, but for the most part, both have been able to contain their wants until after the last bell.

And _that_ was where things became truly strange.

Despite his distance with her on deck, a fully updated routine had formed for the evenings. Silver would lock her in the cabin, vanish to the galley with his crew of thirty, and come back less than a quarter hour later. They’d eat while filling out the log for distance, time, and date; checking their progress against the old captain’s maps. Sometimes he would tell her bits of a story, something from the days of Flint, or earlier if she was lucky. She would retort with something from her childhood sometimes, if it didn’t hurt too much.

Once they’d found out she has a taste for liquor, they would have rum or brandy, or split a bottle of wine. Jim liked the way it made her thoughts swim blurrily, slow, lethargic, like floating in the calm water of the cove back home. For someone who could barely keep up with her own brain most of the time, it was _nice_.

Then undressing for night, both of them, entirely. Jim would bite her lip, smile usually, and let him drag her into bed.

It was—Jim thought, laughing the one night as she fell into the sheets, pulling him down with her, his terrible (quite drunk) joke striking them both far funnier for lateness of the hour—a very grown and very pirate thing to have. Silver’s eyes get darker when he’s looking up at her as his tongue is making her shatter into a thousand shards of sunlight on the sea, she could swear it.

She likes sucking him less, though he’s only requested it twice. The first time he asked her, lustily and shaking, it was a midday fuck he was after. Jim had done _something_ , she wasn’t quite sure what, to make him reach out to her, catching her arm as she walked by.

“ _What_ made you think I’d know how to do this?” she asked, shifting back from him awkwardly after he told her to stop.

“I don’t know. Go back out. I’ll take care of it myself,”

“I don’t think you can lean that far forward.”

“Filthy, you wretched girl,” but his smile was almost proud. Jim wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and Silver hauled her to her feet.

“Thanks,”

“You can try later,” he kissed her, _kissed_ her on the _mouth_ then and she blinked in vivid shock. She didn’t kiss _him_ after his mouth had been on _her_.

The second time, Jim had tried to initiate it. That one was less of a failure, but no more of a success.

_Still_ , striding proudly across the deck during the day, and sleeping with the captain at night, Jim considers herself a sailor and pirate. A pirate woman and a woman of the world. Silver mockingly kisses her hand when she curtsies to him—holding out the edges of one of his shirts, as there are no clothes here that resemble a skirt. He watches her lay down on his bed and follows her.

* * *

“Come on deck with me,” Silver mumbles, some time later, climbing up from between her legs, leaving a trail of wet kisses up her body.

“ _Now_?”

“After you put a shirt on, of course.”

Jim relaxes. She was afraid that he’d want to do _this_ on deck—sure, the pirates all were asleep at this hour but for the helmsman, but _still_. What if someone _saw_?

“What could you possibly want to do on the deck that you would enjoy more than falling asleep on top of me?” she slides her hand up the back of his neck, her fingers into his tangled hair. His lips close around one of her nipples, tongue teasing it. She shivers. “That’s not an answer,”

“Night’s clear…think I only have one magic trick to teach ya?”

“I think you’ve shown me… _most_ of your tricks, Captain.”

“Come on…” he pushes himself upright, and sets about the process of dressing.

Jim watches; she doesn’t _pity_ him for the annoyance of how long it takes to do something as simple as putting on or taking off breeches, but she would like very much if it was easier for him. Once he’s standing on two legs, albeit mismatched, Jim slides her own matching legs off the bed with a yawn. Still pale, he’s told her that her skin will ruddy or tan under the sun.

* * *

“And for the magic…” Silver looks at the deck, and sits down; he nods to the spot next to him.

“You want to show me—stars?” they’ve done this before, on the old ship, on the island, sitting close, closer, and Silver telling her stories about the shapes of the stars, and more practical tricks of navigation with them.

“Not just _stars_. See, they’re always _movin’,_ but this time of year, ‘round this part of the world…look up there. Right by Perseus’s shoulder.”

It’s a sight that Jim had heard about and read about, but never once thought she’d be so lucky to see. She grabs his forearm in surprise.

“They’re _falling!_ ”

“Papists called ‘em Lawrence’s tears, or was it fire?”

“Why?” She settles next to Silver, latching onto him in a way she’s denied most of their time.

“Reminded them of the fire or something. Some king or someone roasted him alive.”

_“To eat?!”_

“No, to torture.”

“That’s still terrible! What did he do?”

“I don’t know. Saint things. Good works.”

“Then why _torture_ him?”

“I don’t know. They made up some reason most like.”

“But _why_?”

She regrets the force to her questioning as soon as the words are out of her mouth, but it’s too late to take them back.

“Because they didn’t like what he thought, or what he did. He said the wrong thing about the wrong person. Could have been anything. People do it all the time, all through history, and right now in every miserable corner of this planet. People tearing people apart for no excuse but they _can_ and they don’t want anyone doing it to _them_ first.”

“Is that why you killed Job Anderson?”

“Who?”

“He—he was one of the squire’s men.” Perhaps he didn’t do it, if he didn’t know—but the child in her heart is quieted by a sterner, colder woman’s voice that shocks her as her own: _he doesn’t remember because he doesn’t care._ “He drowned in a barrel of rum and the captain said he had died of drink but—“

“When I said that some king is what killed Lawrence, I meant he told someone else to do it. I haven’t killed no one you’ve met. Except Killigrew, but that was him or me in a mutiny.”

“…Him or you.”

“Learn it, darlin’, we’ll be passing by Spanish prizes soon, and you’ll have to decide what you prefer. Your own skin or someone else’s.”

Jim tries to lean back to get a better view of Silver’s face, of his expression, but he’s unreadable as ever.

“I like _your_ skin…” she tries, just to get a reaction, any kind of reaction out of him. There’s a twitch of his lips again, as if he’s actively trying not to smile.

“And I prefer your skin to that of anyone else’s—when it comes down to it, you’re willing to do it, aren’t you?”

You—you mean _murder_?”

“Nah, not that, luv,” he reaches over to weave his fingers through hers, gripping tight, holding their twined hands up in front of her face. “You’d pull the trigger or the knife to save our hides, yeah?”

“Silver, I don’t want—“

“You betrayed me once, girl. Can I trust you?”

“Of…of course you can _trust_ me but—If…if I _had_ to our else we would die, I…don’t want to think about it—“

“Think about it.”

“I think I would.”

“Good girl,” he says, letting go of her hand. He leans back to look skywards, at the occasional sparks of falling stars. “Good girl…”

Jim watches. Inconsistent moon and stars that could fall at any moment. Nothing in the world is real but gold and death, and the awful cramps she’s finally starting to feel. She winces. Always unpredictable, but they couldn’t have worse timing as she wants to coax Silver back to bed, and hold on to him.

“I don’t want to fall asleep out here,” she says, standing. She knows better than to try to reach a hand down to help him up: even though she’d do it for any man, one leg or two, she knows by now that he would take offense. “Thank you—for showing me the falling the stars—I was starting to think there wasn’t any magic. Not real magic.”

“Abracadabra,”

She takes his hand, and for the ten foot walk back to the cabin door, leads them both.

* * *

Jim undresses fully again, but Silver doesn’t. She lies on her back, on her pillow, and waits until he’s settled before she moves in closer, turning so her forehead rests on his shoulder.

“You talk in your sleep,” she says softly, barely a whisper.

“I know,” he replies in the same volume.

“You have nightmares,”

“I _know_.”

“Would—Anything that I could…”

“Consider that it’s not lack of opportunity to blame for the fact you’re my only bedmate for more than a few nights in the past six years. Ignore anything I say, and _don’t_ ask about the nightmares.”

She thinks of it. That she’s so special as to be the only one who—that she’s so _tolerant_ as to be the only woman to cope with the fact that she wakes throughout the night to him tossing, turning, or talking.

“I don’t mind it,” she adds. _I care more about you than they did_.

“You shouldn’t.” Jim hears him breathe out hard through his noes. A sigh. A resignation. “You cry in your sleep.” It comes with the tone of admittance.

She raises her head. “I do?”

“Not…not _often_ , like, but ‘s been more than a few.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop with your apologizing; just nightmares…”

There’s a dream of drowning, of watching stars, sparks, or cannon fire in the sky above, but what did it matter? Her head hurts, but her cramps are duller. She hopes she doesn’t bleed long; having Silver lying with her has kept her anxiety about pirating at a distance, and she dreads getting closer to the violence without the distraction.

She turns away from him to curl up to sleep. She dreams again of screaming, of drowning in a red ocean, of knife in Silver’s hand plunging into her body over and over and over.

Someone is screaming, wailing, crying. Maybe it’s her.

When she wakes, Silver is awake, staring miserably at the ceiling.

“What is it?”

“Go back to sleep.”

“What is it?”

“ _Go back to sleep_.”

“No.”

“Jim.”

“….Fine.”

“Those stars—they’re not the same as the big stars. They’re little rocks on fire, and sometimes they land. They turn the ground to glass, and glint like something between silver and lead.”

“ _What_ a load of _nonsense,_ ”

“I mean it. I’ve seen ‘em! I’ll take one for you, prove it. If we’re ever near the Continent again, I saw them…Greece I think? Or Morocco.”

“You would steal a star to prove to me you’re not lying?”

“I’m a man of my word, girl,” he tilts down to kiss her, it is slow, drawn out and Jim feels it’s heat curl inside her like fire set to paper.

“Nonsense….”


	6. Truth and Trust

Sea water doesn’t make you feel much cleaner, but at least this water, warmed from the ship’s little furnace, makes her feel _better._

Silver ordered two ordinary sailors to heat and haul water up for a short, wide barrel that Jim was just scrawny enough to fit in like a bath. She smiled at the bitter faces of the men—hardly men, they were little more than boys, certainly no more than a few years older than herself—as they came and went. Smiling over the rim of her glass of wine, wrapped up in one of the captain’s coats as he watched from his desk. (He watched as she washed too, less interested now that they were alone, but every other moment he would look up to her, and then back at his numbers, maps.)

Two days since her courses ended, and she still felt entirely out of sorts, moody and miserable, her body aching and the cramps unrelenting. Exhausted to the point that she had feigned sleep after mistakenly letting him know it was over. Of course she misses him like hell (at this very moment she’s thinking of what she wants him to do to her) but still. Maybe not tonight.

Her hair isn’t long enough to braid yet, but long enough it’s falling in her eyes, tickling at her nose. Through her damp curls she spies the captain watching her again, and she stands up to climb out of the makeshift tub and dry off.

“I can work my watch tonight.”

“You won’t get sick?”

“I haven’t eaten since this morning.”

“Fine. If you’re sick again though, put the hammock back up. I’m not catching whatever it is you’ve got.”

“You would be insufferable with so much as a headache,” she teases. He doesn’t argue. “I’m fine. Just too much pain and sun,” she pulls on one of his old shirts and falls onto the bed. It’s no king’s featherbed, but she feels so regal laid out on it alone, arms spread wide, sinking slightly into it’s lumpy layers.

“Get some rest now. You can start your watches tomorrow.”

“But I feel better!”

“I know. We have catching up to do tonight.”

“I thought you said we rode the wind off the storm we dodged; we should be ahead of schedule at this point, by at least thirty miles.”

“I’m not talking about _sailing_.”

“ _OH!_ Oh. That too…tonight should be fine. She’s still quite sensitive, reaching up under the hem of his shirt to her center, and humming contentedly along to some tune the men had been singing a few days earlier. Silver watches.

“Venus made you out of salt and stars.”

“You haven’t been around other women in too long,” she’s sure of it. So afraid for what will happen when he realizes that there are other women in the world, prettier, stronger, older, smarter, more _experienced_ women who could do things for him that she doesn’t even know about. She just hopes he still keeps her afterwards.

“Possibly,” her heart shatters. “But no other one ever had me ready for her at all hours. I haven’t spent this much time with a woman since I was—your age,” her heart _thrums_. Proof, surely, that she’s uniquely suited to him despite all evidence to the contrary.

“What was she like? The woman when you were my age?” it’s dangerous, she knows, both to question his past and risk his temper, and dangerous to her own mental wellbeing to know what she’s being held up against in his head.

“Bess. Daughter of one of my—she grew up where I did. We were… hell, I don’t know. Your age? Thereabouts. She didn’t want to be put to work, so we ran off,” he shrugs, “Shacked up in an old cottage in Cornwall….”

“My Da’s family came from there, he thought.”

“Awful place. Anyway, I came back to her whenever we docked for—two years? Came back the one time and she was dead. Half the town was; fever, of some kind.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“We were just kids. It wasn’t—She wasn’t my _wife_. Just a place to go back to. Before the _Walrus_ of course, when we was sailing full-time like.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Not really.”

“Did you love her?”

“We were _kids_. We talked about vain nothings, ate dinner at the same table, and fucked on a rope bed in the loft. Didn’t know much about anything…”

Jim thinks it’s absurd. If they were her age they certainly weren’t _kids._ Kids— _people_ her age got married all the time. And while she knows she doesn’t _love_ Silver, she’s very aware that he’s the closest person to her in the world. _My friend._

She only hopes that if something were to happen to her, he might mourn slightly more and for slightly longer than he apparently did to the girl he used to have.

“Have you ever loved someone?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about—“

“I _knew_ I shouldn’t have answered that.” He looks back to his work, as if he’s not going to answer, but speaks anyway: “Marianne. Ran a tavern in New Amsterdam. Curves like a Dutch painting, voice like honey.”

“What happened to her?”

“Was on week’s shore leave from Flint when I met her. Same the second time I found her. Third time, some new lady was running the place and told me she didn’t know no Marianne, but Paula, the old barmaid married a farmer and moved inland.”

“How could you love her if you only met her twice?”

“I was twenty-three and stupid, that’s how.”

“I think I’d have to know them quite a while before I knew whether or not I _loved_ them,” she tugs at a feather that’s poking its way out of his pillow.

“Then you’re better off than most of the fools in the world.”

“Is that the only time you were in love?”

“Probably not, but it’s not worth thinking about.”

“Oh. What’s it feel like? Being in love?” She holds the scrappy down feather aloft of her mouth and blows softly, watching it float and then fall faster than she thinks feathers should.

“Jim, I am _not_ the person to ask about this. It feels like—getting’ drunk, only _worse_ , ‘cause when you’re drunk, you _know_ you’re drunk, and in the back of your head you know you’re only bein’ stupid because of the _alcohol_. Love makes you so _bloody_ _thick_ that you don’t even realize you’re a-makin’ the worst miscalculations of your life ‘til it’s too buggered late.”

“That sounds…miserable.”

“’S pointless too. Better to have someone watching out for your neck.”

She considers this. She thinks she trusts him, and the idea makes sense. Back home there hadn’t been any friends she could trust, no one she could say things to without it becoming well known. When she had been a younger girl, she had told the secret that there was a creature, a goblin, a fairy, that lived in the ruins of the old mill, and she had thought she had friends in the children she told.

The following Sunday, the preacher’s daughter had to tell the children to stop laughing as they chanted that _Jemima believes in fairies!_ She learned to read in that drafty, country church. She learned to stay quiet in there too, keeping her head down, letting tears fall quietly down her nose and onto the floor instead of the hornbook pages. From the pulpit, to eyes of the preacher’s daughter, Jim was a picture of solemn piety.

Despite the years between that empty pew in the back, and here in the warm bed of her best friend, she has to blink hard to keep the tears back. Once she trusts them not to fall, she sits up.

“Silver?”

“ _Now_ what?”

“Do you trust me to watch out for your neck?”

Silver looks over to her. Though he’s no longer looking at the sheet of arithmetic in front of him, he still looks like he’s solving an equation.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I do.”

_…makes you so bloody thick that you don’t even realize…_

* * *

It was two bottles of wine between them over a light supper, and then nightcaps of brandy, and Jim had never been so drunk before. She remembers telling him that, laughing about how he was right, love must be _terrible_ if it’s worse than this, if it makes you feel _sillier_ than this.

Right now, she feels positively _wretched_. There’s proof enough that they had sex, or attempted to at some point, but she barely remembers it. Groggy, she peaks through her eyelids at the starlit shadows of the cabin. She tries to move her leaden limbs but something more than wine is keeping her pinned in place. Silver’s got her held…tightly.

He’s lying on her one arm, and it’s asleep, and it hurts, pins and needles, but his form against hers feels—so _good_. It’s odd, that he’s got his head tucked under hers, when usually that’s how _she_ tries to rest if he’ll let her fall asleep that close to him. She rests her free arm around his shoulders and holds him tight.

“I trust you too.”

_…you’re a-makin’ the worst miscalculations of your life ‘til it’s too buggered late._


	7. Siren Song

Smoke curls low around the deck, sulfurous. Thicker, greaser smoke with the perfume of burning meat hovers higher. She’s trying to stand, pushing herself up with her bruised limbs, but she keeps slipping in a sticky pond of her own blood. It’s in her hair; it’s on her hands. When she tries to wipe it from her face, it gets in her eyes.

She can’t see.

Silver is somewhere behind her, bitter, almost mocking her struggle:

“What exactly did you _think_ was going to happen?”

When she finally gives up, she doesn’t lie there long before the entire world shifts under her and she’s dragged out—

—by a whistle on deck, and Silver hastily reattaching his leg.

“Still asleep? We’ve got a prize in our sights!”

Jim’s fingers curl into the sheets. Dry. No blood. There’s no mark on her. A stain on her side of the bed, but it’s old. Her heart is whole, her neck too, and a quick look to the mirror shows her fresh faced as she can be after a brutal nightmare. Silver puts on a belt with a pistol on each side, and at least three knives vanish into his vest, coat, and false leg. He runs to the window, looking out with the spyglass.

“Portuguese merchantman! Lower on gold than the Spanish ones, usually, but less likely to put up a fight because of it,”

Jim rushes over to see for herself, just a blurry shape on the horizon until he hands her the glass; it’s clearer, she can see some color in its flag, but very little else to signify what it is.

“What if it’s a man-o-war?”

“They don’t take this route, and if it is, we’ll outrun them.”

“What if we _can’t_?”

“Then we fight them to the last man, throw the bodies overboard, and I hand it over to Mayhew. We sell it at the next free port.”

Jim neither likes nor trusts Silver’s quartermaster, inherited from the last captain when no member of the crew contested his maintenance of the position.

“Here,” Silver trades her the glass for a loaded gun. It’s the second time he’s handed her one of those, and her hand doesn’t shake under its shockingly light weight any more than it did the first time. Which is to say—only a little. “Remember how to shoot?”

“Yes.”

Grandma had taught her with her mother’s pistol when she was eleven. She had thought it great fun, but wasn’t quite sure about killing a man. She’s not sure now about it either, but quite afraid of what she’ll do to protect the man clapping her on the shoulder like a comrade in arms.

“You’ll stay on our deck until they hand it over. Then go over and join Mayhew. Get the logs, maps, anything with writing or value from the captain’s quarters.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Good girl,” another clap on her shoulder, this time followed by a quick kiss on her forehead that leaves her inclined forward for more. “…Put your breeches on. You’d be a great diversion, sure, but you’d be distractin’ my men too.”

Jim blushes, quickly pulling on the rest of her clothes. Like hell would his men look at her for more than an oddity, she’s all angles and no curves. Her breasts are larger than they were last year (the year before that they didn’t even exist), but…well, she’s not _attractive_ in body or face—

But she notes that it’s not the time to think about such things, as Silver is unlocking their door. Men on deck are assembling, sabers and cutlasses, guns in hand.

“ _Not_ _one_ fucking shot fired until I _SAYS SO_! Is that _clear_?!” Silver’s voice, no longer sleep-raw, echoes across the deck in the early dawn light, fire and blood on the water. A prayer to something or someone she has never spoken to without orders whispers in the back of Jim’s skull. Silver strides across the deck in his second-hand coat, long sage-green and trimmed in gold. Flint swoops down from lord only knows where to land on his shoulder. Silver draws a gun in one hand, primes it without even looking.

“Colors, captain?” the quartermaster asks, bored, and Jim can’t understand _how_.

“Raise the black,” Silver grins, and looks over to where Jim’s standing on weak knees.

She’s wet for him, even like this, even when he’s scares her.

Jim looks over to his second in command, and the boatswain. They’re standing stern, backs straight, arms crossed. She mirrors their posture, and tries to mirror Silver’s grin.

Long John Silver. Infamous pirate, wanted dead or alive, reward, crimes against the crown, murder, piracy. Known conspirator of Captain Edward Flint. Last seen in Savannah, Province of Georgia.

Last seen with his head on her chest, beard scratching her bare breasts, mumbling in his sleep.

Jim’s stage grin turns quite real at that thought. _And he’s **mine**_.

* * *

When the crew surrenders at the sight of Silver’s fully armed crew, the only English speaker, the ship’s doctor, informs them of all they need to know. At the quartermaster’s signal, Silver nods towards Jim to cross over, and she obediently, interestedly, crosses the narrow gangplank laid between the two ships.

The captain of their prize looks at her strangely, but she walks past him and into his staterooms, and starts filling a sack with maps. She tucks one of the Atlantic, in Portuguese or Latin (she assumes, as she cannot read it) with handwriting over it into the captain’s hammock. She hopes he finds it. She does the same with a tiny oil painting framed in silver of a stern-faced woman, holding a lumpy, ruddy infant. It’s about the ugliest baby that Jim’s ever laid eyes on and she hopes it’s due to the artist and not what the poor thing actually looks like. Still. She tucks it into the hammock too, but takes anything else with a shine to it.

_What’s owed us and not a farthing more_.

_I’m so sorry Grandma. I hope Dr. Livesey told you I’m dead._

Mayhew is monitoring the merchant crew, while Silver’s men go below and take anything that might be worth more than a copper. Jim reads the log to be sure they take only valuables. There are extra things, worth little, blank journals and ink. She takes them too, and the pencils. Memories are impermanent and do strange things when left alone at sea, and without record, perhaps they won’t remember the skull with the crossed tusks behind it, or Silver’s false leg. No identifiers other than their approximate latitude of attack.

Satisfied with her findings, she stands up from the desk to leave, but sees something hanging on the wall, catching the light from the open door.

It’s a mirror. And they have a damn expensive one in the cabin already—tall enough to see her whole body in, and wide enough that she could see—

She has watched him bring her to the brink of sanity with his head between her legs in that mirror before, curious as to what her face was betraying.

_This_ mirror was framed by some sort of burnished metal. Copper, perhaps, and a figure of a mermaid was sculpted into the frame to look as if she was holding onto it. She stared at the viewer, her mouth set in an obscene dare, her breasts bare. Her stomach looked soft, her arms too, as she held onto the frame, inviting. She was telling Jim to touch her.

_I’m yours to take._

She was so _pretty_. Prettier than the blacksmiths’ oldest daughter. Prettier than Dr. Livesey wearing rouge and her black suit on the holidays… Her lips looked soft too, and Jim can almost feel her long hair. This was treasure. This made her want to feel the woman’s arms around her.

She tears it off the wall and puts it in the canvas sack too. For no reason! It serves no purpose but for the fact that she wants it, and that it had called to her.

* * *

She crosses back between men hauling barrels of rum and thieved supplies. They are saying things: slip of a girl, tiny for an officer, only got the position because of her hole, and a slew of other crude words grunted unappealingly by men who didn’t fear a captain who couldn’t hear them.

“Get going, birdy,” a sailor—a pirate—says to her, smacking her backside as she slowly crosses the plank back to their ship, so afraid she’ll fall into the churning water between them.

There’s a tough girl somewhere in her chest that wants to spit at the man. Or even push him off the plank.

There’s another girl who would run to Silver, like a child to her father and tell him that one of them broke his first rule: _no one touches the cabin girl_. The tough girl wanted to agree with this one, because Silver would most likely spill his blood.

But Jim isn’t quite either of these girls and so she rushes back over to the ship, taking her haul to their cabin where Silver is talking with two other pirates about what to do with the marked items, and what port would be easiest to exchange them at for quick money. Nassau is mentioned, but Jim isn’t in a hurry to go back there. She stands silent still, but they talk for long enough that she just drops her bag of loot and goes back on deck. They’re raising anchor and lowering sails, and she joins in with it, quick now on the ratlines—her arms are hard with muscle, as is her core, her legs. She’ll never be soft as the mermaid now, but she thinks she might make a decent pirate yet.

“ _Hawkins_!”

She almost loses her footing, but by sheer dumb luck, manages to make it look like a graceful turn around.

“Yes?” she looks down to Silver at the base of the mast, still in his coat and hat.

“Get down from there. You watch is over.”

“No it’s not?”

“Hawkins!”

She works her way back down, jumping the last couple feet either playfully or to show off.

“What?”

“My quarters. _Now_.”

“What did I do!?”

“Nothing,” he isn’t trying to _avoid_ the slight gathering of eyes on them, but he doesn’t look thrilled about it either. “It’ll be dark soon anyway.”

“Alright,” she shrugs.

“Dorsey, take her place in the rigging,” he ordered one of the audience members. Something shifted about Silver’s entire presence, as if his being had somehow changed, subtle moves in posture and attitude, the tilt of his head, and the way he walked, the octave of his voice—like an entirely different person all in a blink. “No one bother me for the next—three hours. Back to work!”

“ _Three_ hours?!” Jim immediately clapped both her hands over her mouth. Silver draped an arm around her shoulders and started to walk her back when Mayhew, Dorsey, and Cooper didn’t move.

“What do you lot want, I said back to _work_ ,”

“The men aren’t happy, Captain.”

“We just scored a prize worth the articles without a lick of effort. What more do they want?’

“It’s not the money. It’s that one,” he points to Jim. “They’re not happy about the special treatment, or the fact that she gets full rations while getting the nights off.”

“Hawkins here doesn’t get the night _off_ , but if someone would rather do her job, let me know. But I don’t think anyone else here _qualifies_ for it.”

The quartermaster looked at Silver as if dreaming of what his head would look like rolling on the deck. Jim tugged on his sleeve until he guided her back to the cabin.

He locked the door.

“Well?” Jim asks, already taking off her shirt; she doesn’t feel like doing anything other than hiding from the crew right now, but she’s sure Silver will want her.

“You stole that mirror. It was in with the books.”

“We stole a lot today,”

“ _Pirate_.”

“I’m a pirate navigator yes,” she doesn’t see how this is any different from anything else that’s happened since she made the choice to join him.

“You stole the mirror because you wanted it,”

“What does it matter?”

“You saw it, you wanted it. And you took it for yourself. How did that feel?”

“Like—getting away with something I shouldn’t have done. Like _stealing_. I _stole_ it.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“No?”

“Then why did you do it?”

“Because—“

“Because you wanted it. And it felt good to have it.”

“I suppose…” she thinks about the mirror, about brushing her hair in it, eyes glancing down to meet the mermaid’s gaze every now and then. Nothing on this ship belonged to only her other than some clothes. Now she has her own little treasure. “It’s mine though! You’re not selling it at port. I stole it. It’s mine.”

“I’m going to fuck you.”

“What?! I mean…I figured that’s why you brought me in here? But why…why say so?” there’s a connection, between her stealing and him wanting her, and she knows what that connection is, but can’t quite name it.

“Not—Not like _usual_. Lay down.”

She’s already wet again, despite not wanting to start yet only minutes ago.

“What do you mean, not like usual?” it concerns her slightly, but nearly enough to stop the gooseflesh of her arms, or the pulsating feeling inside her.

He doesn’t undress yet, but walks to his desk, takes a handful of gold, and crosses the room to her. He drapes her in gold chains and sets a string of pearls around her neck. He unties the haltered band she’s been using in place of stays to hold her breasts in place. Starting at her shoulders, he runs his hands down her body to her hips, pushing down her breeches.

“You got all the papers from the captain’s office?”

“I did.”

“Read them off to me later.”

“Of course.” She sees the mermaid mirror propped up on his desk. She hopes sailing is smooth, or else it will fall off easily, break, and be gone from her life. Too many things have been far too temporary as of late.

“You like mermaids too?”

“She was beautiful. I can’t look in it while I’m looking at her. I’m—I don’t look like—“

“Aye, you’re not mermaid,” his hands on her breasts, as if to illustrate how they do not match up to the ornamental woman. “But you’re real and you’re _here_. You followed through with a prize without trying some misplaced act of false heroism. You stole for me. Stole for yourself.”

With an arm behind her back, he scoops her up, another arm under her knees, his mouth on hers, beard scratching her face as he adjusted his hold on her—it’s gotten longer, and she likes it but also wonders distantly if he’ll ever trim it. She holds onto him to avoid falling, her calf brushing the front of his trousers and the hardness therein.

“I want you,” she works out, “I shouldn’t—and you scared me this morning, and it scares me that I want you, but I _want you_ , so _badly_ , all the time. All the time! I can’t help it, I don’t know if this is a very pirate thing to feel or—or if this is how women feel all the time with men but—“

“Mutual, darlin’, mutual…” There are teeth in the kiss on her neck and she sighs through the pain, if she can even _call_ it pain when it sends a jolt from the nerves of her throat down her body. She lets go of his shoulders to hold his face between her hands and hold it still long enough too kiss.

“I’m ready for you,” she says against his lips.

“Mermaids and men, then?”

“No such thing as mermaids...”

“I mean _ladies_ , Jim.”

“I don’t know—I know— _know_ I want you. Is that enough?”

He drops her onto the bed, gold clinking.

“Hmm…”

“Don’t tease me, Silver,” she whines, trying to make herself comfortable on the pillows as he strips.

“I’ve never done any such thing to you. _Tease_. As if you don’t waltz passed me on deck with your skinny hips and high voice as if that’s not the most _tempting_ thing…”

It doesn’t make any sense to her at all that he wants her. It almost hurts, this idea that he’s been tricked either unwillingly by her, or else by loneliness into finding her attractive.

His leg falls to the side, and he clumsily climbs onto the bed beside her, still looking at her as if making up his mind what part of her to eat first.

“Just fuck me, please,”

He _moans_.

* * *

She likes how he fills her, even likes how tight it feels when they first start, because it _feels_ , and it’s _him_ making her feel. How deep into her his length reaches. She hums contentedly as he starts to rock against her, languid, almost sweet movements. Her own tension builds slowly when he lays her like this, and she lifts her shaky legs up around his waist, her hands onto his back. She wonders if he’d be willing to rub her back again as he did during her monthlies, and if he’d allow her to rub his back without shoving a knife in it. More nonsense, that she would ever be able or willing to hurt him.

“Pirate girl?”

“You feel _so good_ …” she answers, despite not knowing what he was trying to ask. The fingers of her left hand inspect one of the scars she assumes is from a bullet. She still hasn’t had a good chance to inspect them up close in the light—he’s usually facing her, or behind her.

He increases his pace until she sucks in a half-frightened gasp at the roughness. She whines as the tension continues to build faster now, that feeling he had told her was pleasure clouds what little narrative thought she had left. She’s unaware that she’s still whining, louder now.

“That’s it, darlin’, come for me,”

She shudders, her nails dig into the flesh of his back, but she doesn’t notice that either. She’s fighting it, she’s aware of that much, but she wants this to _last_ until she can’t take it. “Keep going—I want more…”

Silver’s whimper is an undignified echo of hers, and it might make her laugh later but all she knows now is him ramming into her as she fights the precipice before she slips and falls over it all at once. A shrill cry escapes her throat that makes his movements stutter.

But he _doesn’t stop_ , and she hisses out a few words that she isn’t sure she’s ever said in front of other people. She can barely _breathe_ , her hips tilted to try and ease the intensity only increases the friction of his shaft in her, and it’s too much, too _much_ after she’s fallen over again and again before he finally spills with his own string of curses.

It might be days later when she finally finds enough of herself to speak:

“What was _that_?”

“You never made yourself come more than once?”

“Not—not _together_?” she retorts, her whole _self_ feels like she’s floating in the warm shallows. Her condolence is that Silver doesn’t seem to be much better off, still catching his breath. “Is that _usual_?”

“Usual with some, less with others,” he looks over to her. It’s close to dark in the cabin, gold giving away to blue outside. Jim knows she’s a mess, hair sticking to her forehead, face exhausted and chin tucked into her neck from the awful position on the pillow she fell into. She tries to turn away, not wanting him to see, but he pulls her by the waist up against himself, firmly enough that she can’t casually move away. “You’re the best shag I’ve had in years.”

So badly does she want to murmur something self-deprecating, because he _must_ be lying to her. She can’t though, not when her body relaxes totally against his as he holds her.

“I wouldn’t know,” Jim says eventually, “But I can’t imagine anyone else making me feel like that. I wouldn’t want them to.”

  
“You _are_ very young…” he rubs at her back, fingers digging deep into the newfound muscle along her spine, working his way down.

“I’m not _that_ young!” she’s too tired to giggle, but grins up at him.

“No…Not too young.”

It doesn’t occur to her often, not anymore, not when these past months have been so removed from what she ever thought reality would be for her—but it occurs to her _now_.

“Is that what was wrong with me—on the _Hispaniola_? And on the island? You didn’t want me because I was young?”

“It wasn’t something _wrong_ with you! Hell, I fucked Joan around the longitude of the Azores just because I couldn’t cope with you being so _close_ all the time…”

“You and Joan—“

“It didn’t mean nothing. Sex doesn’t mean you like someone.”

“…Do you like me?

“Why ask—“

“Do you like me, John?”

“Made you my navigator…”

“I suppose that’s good enough.”

“Trust is harder to come by than anything else, not even gold is that rare.”

“I like _you_ ,” but lest he assume a different meaning from what she intends, she quickly adds: “And I trust you!”

“I’d hope so.” He pulls a sheet up, and leans down to kiss her on the lips. “Goodnight,” he says, distant, “I do you like you, cabin girl,” he kisses her again, and resettles, still holding on to her.

She might be young but she isn’t stupid. Something very strange had just occurred, but she knows somehow that if she were to try and name it, or even acknowledge it’s existence, it would vanish in the same breath.

“’Night.’”


	8. Longing

Tortuga.

_Fuck this place._

Silver hates it.

Some bastard cheated him out of his cards once in the biggest tavern of the port.

He’s been stabbed here _four_ times (six times in Nassau, but Nassau was thrice the size of Tortuga).

It lures in all matter of buccaneers and coastline huggers and weekend pirates who don’t actually know _shit_ about sailing.

All the women worked independently, which made it much harder to tell between free agents and bored wives (hence two of the stab wounds.)

The air was cleaner, and the island greener than Nassau, wild fruits and berries, colorful birds, and water that tasted clear as rain—fine, that’s lovely and all, but bugger this entire, miserable, roach-ridden hellhole.

The fucks at the exchange always take extra for themselves, too.

He watches the man in front of him weigh the coins taken from the Portuguese merchant, and run the numbers.

“A diamond of an ounce, or raw bits equaling about two. Or give me the ruby for the whole lot,” Silver says when the man reaches for a few citrines.

“The ruby isn’t for exchange.”

“Shame, I could take the blues instead,” Silver mumbles, turning a pocket knife in hand, bored.

The blue-eyed man looks around curiously:

“We don’t have any blue gems.”

“I’LL TAKE YOUR EYES,” Flint squawks.

Mayhew huffs.

“Just take the fucking supplies and the indigo; we’ll trade the gold in farther north.”

Silver wants to slit him open like a tuna for speaking out of turn, but here it’s just the two of them. He needs to get this done, needs to get back to the ship, to Jim, willingly locked in his cabin.

Gods, he wants to be between her legs right now. Fuck this whole island, his idiot crew, his miserable quartermaster, just get back to the girl waiting in his bed.

It’s dangerous, how much he likes her, he knows that. Clever Jim with her big eyes, her wiry body and snug little quim. He can still taste her on his tongue from their parting, her lips moving so sweet and artlessly under his own.

She’s been interested in that more recently, kissing goodbye, good morning, good night. Truth be told, he thinks he’s the one that started that, to shut her up in the evenings—a good snog would quiet her even if two, three orgasms couldn’t. Jim wouldn’t tolerate this _unfairness_. She would tell the man to give them their fair equivalency in the gems or they’d go elsewhere.

Silver doesn’t have time for this, and pirates’ rules for their homeports be damned, he wants to threaten him with a gun to get a move on…

Laying Jim on the beach, by firelight and under stars tonight. It’s cloudy though, so maybe tomorrow night if they’re still in port. Take the winds up past the islands and into Louisiana, Province of Georgia. Florida even. Be the sort of land-clinging rat that he hates so much for a while until they’ve scoured enough to free the men of their articles, take a ship somewhere and head to Nassau to recruit a new crew.

Damned Edward Flint. He should be retired by now, not trying to scrape together enough to keep a ship and crew running.

“What can we get for the dye and the wines?” Silver finally says in a roundabout agreement with Mayhew.

* * *

He’ll tell the crew to go to shore for the night. Stay in harbor and cook for himself and Jim. Get a few hours and a clearer head. He thinks better when he knows where she is; he thinks better when they’re half dressed in their cabin.

It’s been a long _hike_ over to this side of the port too, two miles, easily, and the sawed bone and it’s thin remains of muscle and skin of his left leg aches from the friction, as if he didn’t fasten it correctly—

\--Jim had helped him into it this morning. He nearly shoved her away, but the look in her eye when he raised his hands—he’ll tell her off for it later. If he hurt her, physically, things wouldn’t be the same there, and he likes the arrangement of her waiting for him happily. He doesn’t know if he’d force her. He wouldn’t, not on the _Hispaniola_ , but…any longer trapped on that island. If, now that he’s had her, she would deny him—

_Impossible_. The charming slip of a sailor has been in love with him since last April. Dangerous, but he can’t complain, and she doesn’t seem eager to ask anything of him, which is good. She’s a guaranteed vote in his favor, a pair of eyes watching his back, and—

And she really is the best shag he’s had since he was her age. Or what he assumes her age is. She mentioned a birthday off handedly, so she might be older. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen? Maybe that was it, he hadn’t had a woman that young since he was a young man himself. Bess the youngest, she was about a year older than him, Jane’s sweet daughter.

None of it matters, but it’s nice that Jim doesn’t seem _compatible_ with him in anyway that could lead to trouble, whether her age, physical work on board, a poor sailor’s diet, or too much wine was the reason—that once she bled horribly, and he wondered of course, but what did it matter—

She didn’t suspect, and so he shrugged it aside. A few days later she climbed onto his lap in his chair, and started grinding against him. No one taught her that. The _instinct_ on the little witch, to know exactly what to do and how to do it to make him just—

_Hell_. He wants back to the ship.

Just a few more small prizes or one larger one, a new crew… Someday Jim might know enough to be a real officer, not some nominal role. He likes that idea.

Dinner tonight, with the cabin girl looking at him over her glass, a giddy smile on her wine-stained lips…


	9. Private Stars

Jim blearily looks out over the waves. The English translation of the _Odyssey_ that the dead captain had left behind described the waves as Neptune’s horses. She likes horses, she liked riding them when she had the chance. She even liked their thick smell and the velvety feel of their noses.

Animals always did like her, and it made her otherwise lonely existence tolerable—walking the long way home to pass the horse and sheep in pastures. That Flint liked her when he seemed to care for no one else didn’t shock her at all, and she misses him when he opts to follow his master rather than her, his newer friend.

She flicks between passages in the book, sighing heavily. She’s tired, and the sun is melting into gold over the waves—tinted dark blue in the late evening despite their clarity up close in the daylight. Her head almost slips from it’s resting point on her hand and she startles awake.

There’s a key in the lock.

A smile breaks through her dreary mood and she stands up from the desk.

* * *

“You’re a peach, luv.” Silver’s lying across the bed, his good leg hanging off the edge, his head resting on her belly as she strokes through his freshly washed hair. What a shame, that he had cleaned up on land just to become a sweaty mess so soon after. She smiles to herself.

“I was afraid you were going to find some other girl in the town.”

“No you weren’t, you think too highly of yourself,”

“You’re thinking about _you_ , Silver. I think—“ not highly of herself, not at all, but she can’t let the claws on the sea floor drag her down, not here, not now.

He catches her hand and kisses the inside of her palm lazily.

“You think? You think too much.”

“So many complaints…” she shifts slightly as that wonderful ache starts up once more—she wants him for at least another round, but it’s too soon, and he’s not usually ready again this quickly. Her movement rouses him and he sits up; she immediately misses his comforting weight on her.

“You and me, you know. Once we get a couple more prizes and can cut the men loose of their articles…We’ll sign on a new, better crew. Maybe loan out our shares towards a bigger ship. A reclaimed gunship from the king’s navy.”

“Or keep this one, and make our own fleet.”

“You just want to hear some horrified, squirming worm of a naval officer squeal _Captain Hawkins_ in terror before I cut his throat.”

“Again, you’re thinking about yourself,” he laughs, silently, in agreement. “Besides, if I’m captain, and you’re captain, doesn’t that mean we’re on separate ships?”

“It would.”

“I’d rather be one of your officers—your first officer.”

“See how you weather the next thousand miles or so, before you start applying for that job.”

“You already ask my opinion on everything!”

“Because I like hearing you talk,” he lies back down, making himself more comfortable, turning to kiss her ribcage and it tickles. “It’s not because I’m actually _utilizing_ it.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t sound so lonesome about it.” She doesn’t start petting him again, and she hears his huff of annoyance at that. “I _like_ hearing you talk.”

“I like hearing you talk too,” his hand blindly finds hers, and squeezes it hard for quarter of a second. “When I get my five thousand miles, I want a bird tattoo.”

“Swallows. I’ll take you to get something else after the next prize. Anchor?”

“Stars.”

Her answer is so quick she surprises herself, but she thinks it over and she means it.

“I want stars.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere I can hide them, so no one else will see them.”

“I’ll see them,”

“It’s only fair. That you can see my stars. You gave them to me.”

“Which ones?”

“Saucepan…Lyra. Cassiopeia. I want them all.”

“You could have them here,” he kisses at her hip, “And here,” a little farther up her waist, “And here too,” under her breast, and now Jim’s giggling as Silver moves over her.

“You could give them to me?”

“I’m not an artist,” he says, pressing himself against her as she grinds her hips into him, encouraging.

“They’re just dots and lines. I trust you.”

“You trust me?”

“Told you before.”

“Well, you shouldn’t.”

“Oh, I know, but I’m making my own choices now, even if they’re bad ones,” she bites her lip; he’s only half hard, and she’s ready. Silver’s mouth works it’s way up her neck, leaving a series of hard sucking kisses sure to bruise on his way to her mouth. She hums contented as he coaxes her mouth open under his, encourages her tongue with his own: she’s gotten much better at this. Silver groans, pushes against her harder,

“Your captain’s getting old,”

“Really? I had no idea,”

“Can’t keep up with you, you insatiable wretch.”

“You could have used your fingers and I’d be done already.”

“Didn’t want to. I want inside you,”

“Then stop complaining about me or I won’t let you.”

“You wouldn’t last five days.”

“Don’t tempt me into starting a—oh my _God._ ”

-Lord’s name in vain.

-Naked before a man.

-She no longer owns a skirt.

-A wanted murderer has slid his cock into her eager body for the second time tonight.

She really, really hopes that everyone in Black Cove thinks she’s dead.

“You’re—saying?”

“You’re—awfully _big_ for a man, aren’t you?” it’s not bad now, but every time he enters her at first it’s a stretch. She assumes she’s ready, she feels it, and it’s only here very outermost entrance, and he _did_ call her small, but surely, _surely_ that bit of him is…larger than usual. It must be.

“You—Jim, you are…officially,” he moves against her, almost gently, “My _favorite_ woman in this whole, wide, goddamned world.”

“Same—well. Man. Favorite _man_.”

“Only sayin’ that ‘cause of this…”

“So are you! And—not true…” she arches up into him in rhythm with him; like their thoughts, their speech patterns despite the different accents, everything: like how one hand plays the melody and the other hand plays the harmony. “I like your cooking—you should make us supper more often.”

“Whatever you want.”

She holds tight to him, expecting him to start moving faster, start making her feel the edge of pleasure before pain, but he doesn’t. He keeps moving slow, easy.

“What are you doing?” she asks,

“I’m playing poker,”

“Was that a—a pun?”

“No. But if you thought it was a good one, then yes.”

“It wasn’t, Silver—I mean! Why are you going so slow?”

“Don’t you like it?”

“I suppose. I don’t feel much…pleasure—I like this! I do like it, I just—I don’t know.” It feels so sweet to be touched like this, but it’s so emotional, it’s easier not to show too much telling affection him when it’s rough. Now she’s not sure with so much clarity of mind how she’ll ever not think about how badly—

_\--oh. I’m fond of him again._ That’s not good.

“If it’s not doing nothing for you, I’ll—“

“No! No…it’s good. I can touch myself too,”

“ _Oh_ …yes, do that. I want to feel you come around me.”

It’s too easy, once he’s moving on her again, to wind herself up with a hand between their bodies. To feel herself putting more pressure on his length.

“ _My girl_ …” he moans, more breath than voice, “ _Yes, that’s it…_ ” even though she wasn’t doing much at this point by lying back in her own hazy post-climax. He moves faster, clumsier too as his end approaches, and she tilts up to meet him again before he shoves into her one final time before releasing. It makes her shudder.

She assumes it can’t do anything—for all the seed he’s sown in her, nothing ever stuck. Two, four months and as many bleeds later she counted herself lucky despite forgetting, but then…Well. Perhaps they just aren’t compatible. Or maybe she’s only been lucky. Maybe she can’t carry children. Her courses were always irregular and weak. But she loves the feeling of him inside her, staying in her as long as feasible, long after he’s gone soft again.

“Darling, you—” he bows his head down to the crook of her neck, and doesn’t kiss so much as he presses his mouth to her skin.

“Yes?”

“Nothin’, it’s nothin’….”

“ _Tell me_.”

“I’ve fucked a lot of women. There’s only been a few though that—“

“Oh, more nonsense. You say such _stupid_ things after you finish.”

“I’m not about to start sprouting sentimental shit, I meant. Not a lot of girls that have been like you. You’re different.”

“That’s kind,” the kindest way to say it. She’s odd, she’s off, she’s strange, she’s _other_. She’s heard it all.

“We both are. You’ll see. A gunship at our command, the seas will be _ours_ for the taking one day soon, soon…”

“Silver?”

“Yes?”

She tries not to think about what she wants to tell him. She tries not to think more about hunting, about pirating. She thinks about how grounding he is, thinks about how warm their bed always is.

“You’re always on top of me. Lets do something different tomorrow again,”

“You want a turn?”

“Sure. Or at the desk again, or against the door.”

“Are you getting bored with our private life?”

“No,” she means it; her fingers tangle into his hair again. It’s dark but glints red in the light where hers glints gold. “But I like other things too.”

“Fair enough, luv, fair enough…” he leans into her touch, and as they fall asleep, Jim can almost convince herself they made love tonight.


	10. Dawn Changes

First bell rings and Jim’s face contorts into displeasure in her half-sleep. She untangles one of her arms from the knot of seven limbs, and rubs at her eyes—and the feeling of dried salt wakes her more. The familiar feeling of dried tears confuses her deeply. It had been such a _nice_ night, Silver still snoring quietly against her shoulder.

“Was—was I crying?”

“W—What?”

“In my sleep. Was I crying again?”

“Oh.” He readjusts how he’s holding her, pulls her against him as he turns over onto his back. Jim settles easily at his side, tucked under his arm. “Yeah…you were crying around three.”

“Sorry I woke you,”

“’I was already awake,”

She doesn’t question why.

“We have to get up soon,” she looks up to kiss his beard, as close to his mouth as she can reach from where she is. “Wind won’t last long,” she yawns, “And I know you hate this place.”

“Bloody strange people at this port… Part-time pirates and heat-mad morons—I was here, hell, what was it eight years ago? Ten? Some idiot barges into the town square saying he needs a crew of ninety-nine men. Ninety-nine! For his _brig_ , not even a third rate ship. His whole existing crew roaring drunk, and telling stories about ghosts and the living dead. And everyone _believed_ them!”

“Silver. _You_ believe in ghosts _too_.”

“That’s different,”

“ _How_?”

“I don’t go around telling ghost stories to strangers for free rum and skirts,” he takes a glance down at her, and she’s holding back on a laugh, “Now what?”

“You. You’re so _grumpy_ about anything that doesn’t go exactly your way.”

“I’ve had officers keelhauled for saying less than that,”

The threat comes out so weak that Jim finally breaks down and laughs. Staying still this long makes her antsy, and her fingers dance across his chest, his ribs, around scars and tattoos. He catches her hand as he did last night, and kisses the tip of each finger; the action reads as possessive rather than affectionate, but she doesn’t mind.

“When we finally get to ditch these swabs, I say we harbor for a week or two in Nassau on our own,”

“That sounds wonderful,” she sits up, enough to lean up over him to kiss. They aren’t in love, but Jim thinks about what they’ve got, surely this must be what it’s like to be a pirate captain’s wife? She pulls away with a pout. They’ve had fourteen, fifteen hours alone together and it wasn’t enough. She’s getting soft for him and she knows it. Perhaps it’s the prize, the promise that this might work, or the fact that he’s open to considering her as an officer after she’s learned more, but last night’s revelation still rings her in head. She likes him again, quite a lot. Not only the burning want, not the yearning for approval, but something else as a cooling undercurrent or perhaps a riptide looking to drown her.

Jim forces herself out of bed, all too aware of his eyes on her as she heads for the trunk of clothes.

“Wait,”

“Do you want a hand?” she looks at him, propped up by his arms, his eyes raise goose bumps on her skin as they cross it.

“No. I just want to look at you,” he says.

Jim almost crosses her arms over her chest, but on thinking of how absurd that would be, lets it go. Unable to not do _something_ , she puts her hands on her hips.

“There’s not much to see,” she gives up on the pose and tugs at a curl, hoping her hair will just grow faster so she can braid it, or at least look more like a girl.

…she blinks, surprising herself again. She never really cared about looking like a girl before. Still, she liked it being long enough to braid, or at least pull back out of her eyes. It was more practical.

“There has been, _recently_ —“ He has to use the crutch to cross the room to her, but she doesn’t mind or even notice. “—Some _developments_ …” with careful, practiced motions, he takes her into his arms and bends her back, kissing her breasts hard enough she cringes. “Must be all the sweet wine. I hope the changes continue.”

“I—I always was…flat chested.”

“I wouldn’t call this flat chested,” the hand not on her back covers one almost to the point of squeezing, “But you’ve…grown. How old are you?”

“I turned eighteen over the summer.” She did not. And she isn’t sure why she lied; women her age and girls younger were married off every day. She’s of age at seventeen and isn’t sure why— _or even how_ she managed to pull off so quick and smooth of a lie.

“Late bloomer. You’ll keep getting better,” his hands drift to her hips; she doesn’t think they’re any more defined, just that he’s seen them without a man’s shirt and breeches in the way. “Go on, get dressed,” he adds quickly, with a kiss on her temple.

Jim doesn’t know what she’s feeling, but it certainly isn’t desire (at least no more than the baseline desire she always feels for him, like embers in a furnace that never quite die out) and she’s glad he isn’t about to pull her back to bed.

“You have a nice arse too,” he’s still watching her, apparently, and it makes her dress faster. This heat has her wearing shirts half buttoned down her chest, and then tied under her breasts rather than the whole way down. Most of the men go about shirtless, and don’t seem to mind her state of near-undress.

“So do you,” she mumbles, pink in the cheeks. It’s so _forward_ , even after all the things they’ve done. “And I like your—everything, really. Your muscles are firmer than mine. And I like how your hands are bigger than mine, and I like that you’re wiry, like I am,” she looks over her shoulder, curious if she’s said something wrong, but he’s smiling to himself as he straps the false leg back on over his drawers. It makes her smile too.

“Tonight, do you want to do that again? I can make us dinner before the men tear apart their rations in the galley. Something nice again.”

“That fish last night was good, and Flint liked it.”

“Then we’ll see about some new positions for you, since you’re so bored with my limited tricks,”

“I’m not _bored_ , I just thought—there were more things out there,”

“Well. I’m a bit _limited_ , in my range of _motions_ , but—“ an idea must arrive, because something that’s far too evil to be called a smile appears on his face and Jim swallows hard. “Oh I have ideas for you…”

“They better live up to the expectation you’re putting forward.”

“Don’t worry, darling. Ever wonder what it would be like to—“

Luckily, before Jim can be farther reduced to a mortified puddle, a harsh knock at the door takes his attentions from her.

_“What the blazes do you want!?”_

“There’s a ship anchored by us. The captain wants to see you, Silver.”

“Silver—“ Jim grips his arm. “What if—?”

“I’ll shoot first, luv. Promise.” The kiss on her forehead feels placating again—funny, almost, that he already has a gesture dedicated to trying to calm her down. He’s halfway out the door when she catches his scarf, and ties it around his neck for him as they walk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that the recent chapters have been so much shorter, we're just working our way towards a few more main events before the inevitable end of Captain Silver and Navigator Hawkins....
> 
> [evil smile]
> 
> Genuine question though, that once the pirate story is over, do you guys want an epilogue, or more chapters?
> 
> Thank you all for reading, I know you're mostly quiet but I see the view count rise by six or so every time I post. I'd love to hear from you, even if logged out/written as guest comments. But still, if you don't feel comfortable replying to this, thank you still for reading <3


	11. Crossraods: The Triton

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took Forever. bad week at work and home.

Of all the dread things that Jim’s mind had conjured up, of all the possible horrors that the newly arrived ship could have in store for them, she never could have imagined _this_.

Three sailors are playing fiddles—three _pirates_ are playing fiddles, while a kind-looking boy with wide, dark eyes and freckles that stood out even against his brown or tanned skin twirls her around gracelessly. She laughs while Flint shrieks through the music, but there’s a chorus of out of tune voices drowning him out. Other sailors are dancing too—other _pirates_ , it’s so hard to think of them as such on this bright and clean vessel, so out of place amongst the smaller ships of Tortuga’s quiet cay. Another young man catches her wrist and twirls her towards him, and her loss of balance nearly knocks them and her previous partner over.

The visitor was a captain who had crossed paths with Flint ten years earlier as a young man, who had simply wanted to see the myth of Long John Silver in the flesh, and certify that this man sailing under his colors was indeed who he claimed to be.

Captain William Darling (Jim had laughed herself nearly silly at his name in a fret of nervous relief that he wasn’t going to kill them all) and the men of the _Triton_ invited them on board for a toast, for their prize of American whiskey and pork roasted right on the deck, and _music._

“There’s no real inns or nothing in Tortuga. Not until you go farther inland, and by then a man won’t want to leave, so when we resupply here, we tend to stay on board.” Darling confides in Jim as he shoos away another young pirate looking to dance with her. So many close to her own age, so chivalrous reaching out for her hand with wide smiles. It’s a harsh contrast to Silver’s crew, and how they always look at her with such loathing.

She likes this captain; a bit older than Silver, his face is kind despite it’s weathered features and his voice is deep and rich, the exact sort made for telling stories by a fire. His wife is charming too, a beautiful Spanish woman with her hair pulled up in curls, and a toddler with his father’s eyes and mother’s smile clinging to her pant leg.

“Why aren’t you in Nassau then? Piracy is moving north, last I heard,” Silver not-so-gently nudged away Darling’s son as he approached him. The boy crossed back over to Jim who lifted him up.

“You’re heavier than you look!” there were so few young children around the inn while she was growing up, despite how much she liked them. They were kinder than the ones her age. “What’s your name?”

“John,” the captain’s wife replies. “He’s getting too bold with strangers.”

“Of course he is,” Silver rolls his eyes, and Jim sticks her tongue out towards him, teasing freely in a way she never would in front of their own crew. Their men all still on the island, or and the ones on the ship are too hung over, or proud to dance on another.

“Aye, but Nassau has been shifting sides for years now. You never know who’s eating out of English hands, and Guthrie changes his opinion on the free port every few months. You have to be careful…” William looked over his shoulder at the horizon.

“We was just there in the spring and the bloody place was crawling with our ilk. Black flags blowing in the wind all up and down the south side of the island. It’d take more than the governor in a poor mood to sink Nassau.”

“But on the north banks, where we used to careen the larger vessels? The English are always there. They’ve taken and finished the fort. They took Madagascar from us, and by God or devil they’ll take Nassau too. I don’t know what’s going to become of our kind soon. The world’s shrinking. They’ll block us from the ports until we drown like rats.”

“Listen to the _boring_ grown-ups talk about ports and forts!” Jim says, trying to talk through her anxiety, addressing the laughing boy in her arms. “Can I take him over to dance? Perhaps no one will ask me then,” the wife nods. Jim’s fearful expression shifts to mirth as she leads him away. He’s started to babble about something to her.

“Jim,” Silver mostly sounds tired, “You _do_ realize that you’re also a boring grown—“ she doesn’t listen, but keeps heading towards the music. Silver should have known. He turns back to William “Madagascar, you said…They haven’t taken St. Marie yet?”

“No, no, but there’s not _active_ piracy going on there. Ever since the pardons rolled out, it’s just fishermen and craftsmen. It’s a fine village, and a half-decent hide out, but it’s understood that you can’t hunt in their waters. What sort of pirate haven tells you not to be what you are?”

“I didn’t think I was away from the game for this long.”

“What happened, after Flint drowned in drink?”

“Who told you it was the drink?”

“Everyone knew he was a hothead. Everyone knew he was more volatile than Blackbeard and that it must have been the liquor. There were rumors you know,” his tone shifts, not apprehensive, but perhaps apologetic. “That it was Bones—or you, what ended him, But a stronger crew couldn’t have been held together. That was always Flint’s power. He had what Blackbeard didn’t—the best and bravest.”

Silver doesn’t argue with the man, but drinks again, slightly more self-aware than usual. “Flint died, his first mate—that was Bones, stole whatever he could carry out of the place and ditched us. Flint already had burned the Walrus in harbor and faked his death the once. I followed that mutinous, traitor of an officer across the fuckin’ ocean. Took two years to find him.”

“Did you get Flint’s Fist?”

“Tell me,” Silver’s smile is a dare and a promise dancing in hell, “If I found that stash, would I be in this pit of a port, or would I be living in a castle with a woman on either side of me, and gold in the walls?”

“Bloody bastard took it to the grave,” William drinks, and shakes his head, a rueful smile. “Just like Kidd in the end, after all.”

Silver considers what the women in his head would look like, in his castle. He does like blondes, golden hair, but as he feels yet-unknown hands creep down his back, he feels Jim’s earnest grip on his arm hours before, trying to get him to wait, consider, before waltzing out to meet a possible enemy. She’s a _thinker_ —stealing a captain’s papers so he couldn’t write a report, and a dozen other things since that moment. Sewing gems and colorful pearls into the hems of his coat and the vest she wore, the linings of their hats—a clever girl with a contingency plan for every contingency plan. She’s a valuable asset in a pirate’s life.

She’s laughing now, almost as if she’s doing it in time with the music, it sounds so sweet to hear for a change. She lifts the boy up by his hands on the turns, and he joyfully (loudly) squeals as she spins him in the air, both of his bare feet off the ground.

“So you and Isabel…just take the boy with you?”

William looks over to Jim, leaning over to hold his hands as he stands on her feet, and she dances them both.

“Why not? We made him on our ship, and he was born on our ship. This is our home.”

“Low and Calico didn’t take their sons to sea,”

“And see what happened to them?”

“Is it true the court executed Low?” Silver swirled the whiskey around his glass. It was too sweet, this American stuff. A good spiced rum was his favorite…or a decent, dry red wine.

“I haven’t been to a gathering since I got out from under Roberts. We didn’t carve out our niche in the world just to form a new government based on the same ones we ran away from, I never understood it.

“When _did_ you get out of his fleet?”

Rather than answer for himself, Isabel finally speaks, looking from her empty glass, to the decanter, and topping off her husband’s before only pouring a finger in her own.

“When he met me and I talked some reason into him,”

“That you did,” he catches his wife’s hand and kisses it, and Silver is uncomfortably reminded of kissing Jim’s hand in bed this morning. At some point he’ll have to contend with the fact that the girl likely thinks of herself as his—he tries to keep his consternation out of his expression— _wife_. And she’ll be in for a brutal awakening at some point when—

…Well. Just because he doesn’t have a reason why she’d be alerted to her place at the moment doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Either way, keeping her close or not, she can’t go around thinking they’re more committed than two individuals with mutual trust. Two individuals who also happen to be able to read half of each other’s thoughts.

His nightmares have been far less violent than before she put herself in his bed.

“And the girl?” Isabel must have caught him watching her. “She’s your…?”

“There’s not a name for it—She’s not a _prisoner_ , if that’s what you mean.”

William considers it, and props his feet up on the low table before them.

“Isa, _cara mia_ , go dance?”

“I’ll hear every word later,” she says to Silver as she rises, looking a bit agitated. Williams mumbles something, but it’s neither mean spirited nor truly annoyed.

“So…” William says, adopting a tone that makes Silver unsure if he’s on his side, or if he’s competition, “You keep a girl on your ship.”

“And you keep a family on yours,” Silver unintentionally mirrors the other captain as he lights a cigar. He’s not fond of them himself, preferring a pipe on the chances he does get to smoke, but if someone else is paying. “Did you marry?”

“Did you?”

“ _Of course not._ What reason does our sort even have for it?”

“Nothing, not really, so far from the law. It can clear up issues of inheritance, when there’s children involved. We’re married, Isa, and I.”

“Am I supposed to apologize or congratulate you?”

“It was _my_ idea.”

“ _Why_ the _hell_ would you—“

“We wanted children. I wanted John to be legitimate in my will. Like I said, the world’s getting smaller, and I don’t need some officer of the king taking what’s rightfully his” Darling looks at Silver’s distant eyes. The man is neither ghost nor monster nor simple legend, and looks so much smaller up close than he did on the deck of his own ship. “Do you have children?”

“No—well, as far as a man can know, I don’t. But I’ve been more careful than most men with the dockside girls—never know if one could be a sister, you know? Can’t have any trouble like that…But I don’t need anyone to inherit. I’d rather sink all I’ve got to Davy Jones and laugh my way to hell. Just as Flint did.”

“Does she—Jim?—have any children she might want to give a cut to?”

“Does she _look_ old enough to already have a bastard by another man?” Silver wonders if this was a trap that William was setting, to talk about Jim’s age. It’s less that she’s young and more that he’s old. Thirty three, he estimates.

“She _is_ awful young…”

“She’s—not that young. She’s different, than a lot of the women I’ve known. ” _Jim’s nails scratching down his shoulder blades as she whines under him. Jim talking a million miles a minute, subject-to-subject, same as him. The strange light behind her eyes when she solves something… Jim weeping in her sleep…_

“So she _is_ your mistress then?”

“I wouldn’t say that,”

“She’s the only member of your crew to follow you over. And she keeps watching you. If she drops John out of distraction, I will kill you,” despite the hospitality and the music, Silver doesn’t doubt his words. William takes a drag on his cigar. “Isa thinks she’s pregnant again.”

“….Congrats?”

“If you’re certain that Jim’s not your mistress…Isa could use a female companion—I had women in my crew before, but they’ve moved on. Less and less put to sea. Less feel _able_ to put to sea, even if they want to. And Jim would benefit too, I’d think. To have another woman to talk to,”

“No. She says with me. Out of the question.”

“She seems quite good with my Jo.”

“She’s _mine_. You can’t just decide to _take_ her.”

“She can make her own choices; she’s old enough, like you say.” He watches where Jim and Isabel are exchanging slightly more serious words under the sound of the music and the crew. “Going by their looks, I think Isa already asked her.”

Silver’s heart stops.

A ship of generous and kind sailors, so many younger faces already so taken with her (and why shouldn’t they be? She’s a charming, _pretty_ thing), little kids running about, laughter amid the work, musicians, friends, some-day lovers even. Why wouldn’t she stay here, instead of the stinking schooner of his?

“You said she’s different?”

“She _is_! She’s—special. She’s…”

“I wonder. Are you defending her, or yourself?

Jim walks to the table again and hands the squirming boy off to his father, before perching herself on the arm of Silver’s chair. No sooner does her hand reach to commandeer his glass does his own hand meet hers halfway, already offering the whiskey to her.

“I think we should part soon,” she said, wrinkling her nose at it only slightly. “Your crew is liable to sail off if left alone much longer,” the sun is starting to melt into the ocean. It’s an illusion. There’s land to the west, and a lot of it, but here, it looks like a sunset on the water—a grand magic trick.

“You think any of them are sober enough yet?”

“I’m no longer surprised by the prowess of otherwise sloshed men,” her elbow nudges his arm slight enough that the couple across from them would never notice, but Silver feels a heat at the suggestion of her words. “So…I suppose this is it?”

“No goodbye for old Long John then?”

Jim’s entire world shifts like a deck on a wave, steep enough she almost loses her balance; her stomach turns.

“What?”

Isabel tugs her husband’s sleeve, and they and their son vanish into the noise.

“You’re a-stayin’ here? What with the female company, and the welcoming atmosphere, and those boys all liked ya…You’ll fit right---“ but she’s shaking her head at him, lips moving without words.

“N—No… _No_! Please take with you I—I can do better! Silver, please, _anything_ you want from me just _tell me_ and I won’t— _please_ don’t leave me, I don’t know what I’d do without—“

“You don’t want to stay here?” her begging is—upsetting, he has to admit, but his body apparently finds it appealing. It’s annoying.

“I don’t have _anyone_ or any home, and no one in the _whole_ _world_ knows I’m alive but _you_ , and I can’t—I—“

“You could make friends here,” he doesn’t know what else to tell her. He certainly doesn’t _want_ her to leave, but it’s hard to think that she won’t prefer it.

“ _Please!_ I’d rather stay with _you_ —I haven’t—we’ve slept in the same cabin for almost a _year_ I can’t go back to sleeping alone, I’ll have worse nightmares and I don’t trust anyone but you in a storm, _please_ , Silver, I _can’t_ leave.”

“You’ll find a new bedmate soon enough, someone to keep you—satisfied.”

“You think that’s all you matter to me? I—I—you’re my _best friend_!” she’s shouting now, and he’s loosely aware of the growing number of eyes on them. Always making a bloody scene, like a crying child. Jim tries to talk again, but no words come out. She opens her mouth again, and he hears her this time, but her voice is almost lost under the rest of the noise, under the music, still playing: “You’re my _best_ friend…”

He wonders if she would keep begging. He wonders what she would offer.

She looks so close to breaking down into hysterical sobbing.

“ _Jim_.”

“I’m sorry…I know I’m—I’m not what you’re used to but I’m sorry—If I did something wrong…”

“ _Jim_. Let’s go back.”

* * *

  
“Clean yourself up…” The black that Jim had been lining her eyes with had run down her cheeks. She stands in front of the mermaid mirror, and slowly scrubs at them.

Silver shrugs off his coat.

“I meant it—do whatever you want with me, or else if-if it’s something you want, tell me and I’ll learn—fast! I _promise_. I’ll be good for you—I—“

“I don’t want you _begging_ me,” though the tent in his trousers says otherwise. “And what’s with this rubbish about us being _friends_?”

“I thought…”

“You’re my _partner_ , Jim. ‘Til I’m killed or hung or drowned. You’re the coconspirator of John Silver. Call it best friends if you’d like, but you’re—well. You’re more than that.”

“I—“ she doesn’t quite know what to say. Outside, his crew sets to work and the only kind pirate ship was heading in the opposite direction. He’d barked orders at his men before pulling her by the wrist back into the cabin, and now night’s falling fast again. Normally by now she’d be starving, but she’s too ill to even think of his cooking.

“You’re not going with the _Triton_. You’re worth too much. Too smart. Too _clever_.”

“I don’t want to go on another ship either.”

“You’re _stayin’_ with me, girl. I’m keeping you. No one’s a-taking you out of my sight, never again, without your say-so. You’re _mine,_ girl, you understand that?”

She doesn’t know what to do with her life, or what she wants, or what to make of any of the strange words he’s saying but—

She hugs him tightly, standing on her toes to kiss him _hard_. Despite her mental state, her mouth is confident. She’s standing on the absolute tip of her boots to reach him but he’s holding her in place at least.

It takes her a moment to gather her head, and even then her thoughts are all loose in some storm without lifelines, but she rests her forehead against his. With a fierce possessiveness, she manages to say steadily: “Take me to bed, Silver,”

“First, I think there’s an apology in order,”

“Oh—I’m sorry I made a scene and—“

“No, not that. _I’m_ apologizin’ t’ _you_ …” he doesn’t _push_ her onto the bed, but his hands on her upper arms give pressure until she falls back on her own. “Look at you, smart as paint, pretty as any prize…”

“Apologizing for what?” tears are still running down her face but the giddiness of what he’s said, what he’s called her, talking around the idea of forever, of committing, and that would be nonsense anyway. As if she’s a wife, as if he could ever be her—it’s too silly.

…But a pirate’s partner, _his_ partner, and by the way he looks at her she could tell he was feeling this strange thing too. “Silver—what’s there to be sorry for?”

“For how _sore_ your poor little cunt’s going to be in the morning.”

“OH!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [pop-punk guitar riff]: mama we all go to hell~


	12. A Constellation

For once, Jim wakes first in the morning.

It’s still dark outside, and Silver is snoring quietly. He had some sort of nightmare a few hours ago, waking them both, and Jim had mumbled quiet reassurances to him—instead of brushing them off, he had let her say them, let her hold him. It’s progress. Towards _what_ exactly, Jim doesn’t know, and by the time he had fallen asleep again, she realized she didn’t _need_ to know.

For now, she kisses his shoulder, gently pushes his hair off his face, and softly rises from bed, both to keep him from waking, and all-to aware of just how badly she was going to ache upon moving. Taking his keys from his coat pocket to unlock the inside of their door, and then lock the exterior lock on her way to the head. On the return, she lets herself in, and locks up again; she replaces his keys with a yawn that morphs into a cringe.

“You’re up early?” Silver is half covered by the sheets and has pulled a pillow over his head.

“ _Yes_ ,” she hisses through the wince. She crosses the cabin to the bunk again, peels off her shirt, and climbs over him to her spot. “Bloody _hell_ , you weren’t kidding about it being _sore_ …”

Silver, despite clearly trying to fall back asleep, laughs. His arms find her blindly, and reel her in close, almost uncomfortably tight.

In her bed in Black Cove she had a blanket, worn soft with age. Wool that should have been scratchy was instead familiar and gentle. Sometimes, secretly, if she hadn’t done her laundry or was too tired to change, she would slip into bed undressed, and the wool might brush her skin here and there, but ultimately was a comfort.

“What are you thinkin’ about?”

“Nothing,” she replies, not wanting to tell him that the touch of his bare skin on hers reminds her of home.

“That big brain of yours never stops. What’s it turning up now?”

“I was thinking it must be bad luck to sail a ship with no name,”

“And what do you propose?”

“You sail for the colors of the _Walrus_. Name her the _Walrus_ again. Captain Silver, of the _Walrus_. What do you think?”

He squeezes her tight again.

“I _love_ it…”

* * *

* * *

Something had _shifted_.

Something had _altered_.

* * *

* * *

Jim still cries in her sleep, and they both still have their nightmares. Silver’s consist (he claims) of dull, typical things. Jim’s are a symphony of drowning, of blood, of phantom pain tearing through her broken body, and more recently, and more frightening than all the rest: of something happening to _him_.

She always remains under the impression that if something were to happen to her, whether it that she ran away at port, or was killed while taking a prize, that he might be out of sorts, but never truly _grieve_.

However, as the days after parting from the _Triton_ turned to weeks, months, she slowly became more aware of the inconvenient fact that if Silver were to get himself killed, she might never get past it. If someone were to do it, someone kill him directly by knife or indirect by gunshot or cannon fire, she would rain _hell_ down on the person who held the knife, who pulled the trigger, the person who loaded the long-gun, the person who aimed it, and the person to light the fuse, saving the captain who commanded the action for last, to kill, to murder as _slowly_ as she could possibly manage.

It’s frightening to her, what she’d do. It’s more frightening that she’s certain she would do so even though, as far as she’s aware, she hasn’t killed anyone yet. Oh sure, a few cuts here and there, even a few pistol shots, but none that seemed to be fatal—unless after their leaving, infection would have taken one of them.

But she’s more _confident_ now, standing tall beside the captain on deck, aware with a thin, proud smile that the men all hate her. She refuses or ignores orders unless they come from the mouth that descends on her at night, not a word unless it’s off the tongue that undoes her to the brink of tears. Silver allows it, mostly. Sometimes he’ll echo an order from the quartermaster or first mate to her, and she’ll begrudgingly do it, but mostly they’re more cerebral tasks.

They order each other around in the privacy of their cabin. Though, with either a missing left leg, or else an inflexible one of wood and metal, their positions are somewhat limited or else modified.

“ _What I wouldn’t do to fuck you on your hands and knees_.”

“ _….I could do it on the bench, you could stand behind me?”_

* * *

* * *

Her title of navigator becomes less nominal, as she helps in deciding where to head based on their library of stolen shipping charts. They pick small prizes one by one and trade in silk, dyes, rum, and whiskey for gold and gems, easy to carry, to conceal.

The pirates always want to take the riches, but Jim is shrewd and practical: part of their most recent haul included a weathered sea chest, and a shaving kit.

“Are you trying to tell me something?” Silver asks, going through the box and looking at the new razors and brush.

“If you shave your face entirely clean, I’m not kissing you until it all grows back,” Jim was cross-legged on their floor, measuring out canvas. “Forty inches by nineteen. What’s the square measurement then?”

“The _area_.”

“That’s a silly name for it,”

“ _Jim_ , that’s _exactly_ what it—seven hundred…and sixty.”

“You’re wrong,”

“I’m not?”

“That’s too high of a number! It can’t be!”

“No, I’m sure I’m right.”

Jim tries to measure it out by hand, but gives up.

“Hand me the razor?”

He does as asked, and she cuts out her work, leaving spaces for darts. She lifts the cloth, shaking out the dust, and the action startles Flint off of her shoulder.

“What are you making yourself? A dress?”

“Do you _want_ me to make myself a dress?”

“If you make yourself a dress I will shave my entire face _and_ cut my hair.”

“Don’t even _joke_ like that. And you like the nightdress we got from the French ship.”

“Jim, that thing is silk, soft, and I can see your tits through it. I don’t need you walking about my deck in something—flouncy and layered and liable to give you heatstroke.”

“Well I’m not making a dress. It’s lining for the sea chest,” Jim measures one of the gold pieces from their last trip to port. Nearly a thousand should fit in the spaces he mentioned, if his math was correct. Silver leans in to inspect her work more closely, and grins.

“You’re taking a cut out of the crew’s share. Villainous, even for our breed.”

“I’m not taking any cuts. I’m keeping record of what I’m pulling, and I’ll count it as your shares, and my share, which, as an officer, should be one and one half.”

“I thought you were making a false bottom for the chest, for the pearls.”

Jim smiles as she starts layering the coins in the bottom of her project, just enough paste on the underside of each one so it wouldn’t rattle, but not so much they’d be hard to pry out later.

“I _did_.”

“What’s this even for?”

“Insurance, Silver. I told you I don’t trust your men, and I meant it. If something happens, we can take this, and at the very least find ourselves a cottage and garden until everyone assumes we’re dead.”

“With comfortable chairs and plenty of hens?”

It’s a joke, but it runs through her heart like the skewers he had roasted the tails of crawfish on last night they had the ship to themselves.

He just _had_ to mention it. He couldn’t have gone the rest of whatever this is, for however long it lasts, without ever alluding to what she could have had and lost. They’ve been so _close_ , they had even stolen decks of cards and chess boards and they’ve _played_ together between dinner and sex—the last three pages of the ship’s log is her hand writing, large and broken down, followed by a far shakier pencil tracing them _. J O H N S I L V E R._

Flint spends more of his time with her than with him now, he listens better to her. Silver listens to her too, making vague references the day after she goes on some hour-long story-rant of mind-wandering memories to tell one single funny vignette of her past that really wasn’t worth telling, almost as if to show her _See? I listened to the entire thing_.

So it is _impossible_ not to think that, in whatever way he can, he likes her.

And she likes him.

A lot.

“I said something?”

“What—no. No, no, it’s nothing,” but her noes is running and her eyes sting with fresh salt. She wants to vomit, but swallows hard until the nausea and the tightness of a cry trying to escape her throat alongside the tea has eased. “I need some air.”

“Come back soon, or who knows what I’ll do left alone with these razors.”

Jim starts to head back towards the row of hooks they hang coats on, but Silver beats her to it. He takes her robe down and drapes it over her shoulders. Just her drawers and a thin shirt with sleeves long cut off was fine for in here, but not when someone else could see.

“I mean it—shave your beard and I won’t kiss you anymore.”

“What about the kiss you hide between your legs?”

His endless spinning of vulgarities has come full circle back to poetry, and on occasion, it still makes Jim blush.

“I’ll be back,” the deck should be clear too, but for whoever’s on the helm and whoever’s up in the crow’s nest. She yawns, and walks to the bowsprit, unsure about straddling it in her robe, or when she’s this out of sorts.

This isn’t forever, but nothing ever is. She’s a pirate with a half dozen tattoos and a handful of scars, she’s her captain’s mistress, her captain’s trusted partner. They’ve been sailing for what feels like her entire life, but she knows it’s only been a year since she left Bristol, perhaps a little more.

She’s been having trouble sleeping.

Silver’s been kissing her goodnight for months.

No more rolling off of her and arbitrarily deciding whether or not he felt like holding onto her or retreating to his own side of the bunk. She has to _ask_ now if for some reason she wants space to sleep. If she’s the one to climb off of _him_ at the end of the night, he _still_ tugs her towards him for a kiss. It’s _affectionate_. It’s something lovers do. Not this, not what they are. Friends and partners, and there might be—

….they admire things in each other, and understand each other, but Jim doesn’t fool herself for a moment that either of them are in love.

And yet—it strikes her that it’s unfair. Any other man would be in love with her by now, right? Unless. Unless it was her, unless she was unlovable. Silver’s insistence that what they have isn’t inherently romantic feels partially incorrect, but she never corrects him. To correct him would be to admit that she feels it’s romantic, and that’s not true either.

Perhaps there was something wrong on her end as well, that she doesn’t love him yet, but she defends her heart to her head by reminding it that if Silver were to love her (impossible), she would find that she loved him very quickly.

Sea spray soaks slowly through her robe, and the damp chills her enough to feel awake. Calmer, convincing herself that the cold in her bones was from the wet and the night and the fact they were farther north farther into the year, and not because she wasn’t happy with their arrangement.

_That’s not true either; I don’t know what else I’d ever do_.

She walks back into the cabin, locks it behind her, and turns around to see Silver dressed down for the evening with his false leg laid across a trunk, his crutch next to him, Flint perched on it, while he scratched the bird’s head.

“Better?”

“I told you, I’m fine,” she stands behind the bench at their little dining table, and hugs him from behind, looking over him at what he’s working on even as she drops a kiss to the top of his head. Shapes with lighter-drawn shapes inside them that suggested objects of dimension, with numbers scrawled beside them, and a few small squiggles and doodles she knows are a shorthand of symbols of his own design, in lieu of a proper ability to write. “What’s this?”

“I’m a-takin’ your clever idea. We can hide gold in everything…”

Jim’s hands work into his shoulders and he hums out a soft moan.

“Luv, the point of it,” she kisses his temple this time, distraction from yet another slip of her tongue calling him one of her names, “Is that if something happens, we take the trunk between the two of us and _run_.”

Silver looks up so quickly to her his skull knocks against her jaw and she jumps back.

“What are you sayin’?”

“Between the pearls in the bottom, the gold in the lining, and the rubies I’ll put in the lid, that chest will carry a king’s ransom. And if we fill it with modest junk anyone who stops us will assume it’s just our clothes.”

“Jim neither of us can carry that coffin alone,” his eyes flash back towards his schematics for a second and then back to her. Jim looks at them too: all smaller boxes, by the measurements he had written. What greed he had, to think that in a moment of fear they would gather everything they had or else let it sink.

“I said we could carry it between us.”

“So you’re saying…in this hypothetical situation where our enterprise is fucked over somehow and we’re running from our ship to keep out of a noose and irons, you’re running with me?”

“Well…I’m not going to run ahead of you, and risk you not being able to catch up, old man.”

Silver looks back at the work in front of him, and then up to her, his face betraying some rawness she’d not used to seeing, before it vanishes behind a devil’s smile.

“Feel like getting drunk tonight, darlin’?”

“Whiskey. The rum gave me an awful headache last time.”

* * *

Jim laughs, long since tipsy but fighting drunk, as she watches Silver (very drunk) curse his way through trying to shove Flint into his cage. The bird shrieks, and pecks at his hands twice.

“’E’s—‘e’s fuckin;… _fumin’ mad_ , that cage. _Hate_ the cage.”

“You’re the one who said you didn’t want him _watching_ ,” she lies backwards, her legs dangling off the edge of the bunk. Her arms make snow angels, sand angels, she hasn’t seen snow this year, but doesn’t meditate on it.

“S’like havin’ a someone watchin—don’t like people _seein’…_ ”

“So you _are_ still going to try and fuck me tonight?”

“’Course I’m…Try?”

Jim’s shock at the sudden weight beside her on the bed wakes her enough to sit up. Silver’s ruddy in the face, _very_ drunk, and he’s far less fun like this. Tipsy Silver was rough, passionate, and brutally honest. Drunk Silver was affectionate, clingy, and almost childishly funny. Silver sloshed was a useless mess. She pouts.

“You don’t last five minutes when you’re like this; wait until tomorrow night,” she gets up and dizzily crosses the room to a pitcher of ship-stale water, but it’s something. She opens a jar of sugar and mixes some into it in a glass with a bit of the whiskey. “Drink this,”

“You’re— _nnnnot_. Not my _wife_.”

Jim almost drops the glass at the words, but keeps walking.

“I’m aware of that, I’m the woman who’s going to have to deal with you sick and miserable tomorrow morning. Drink some water and make it easier on yourself.”

“Don…need ya _carin’_ for me.”

“Someone has to take care of you, since _you_ never bother to,” perhaps if she had drank more of the bottle, then they would both be giddy-drunk, and making empty promises about retiring to Madagascar and tropical flowers, and Flint harassing their guests.

“Sayin’it like ya don’t love it.”

“I’d rather you fit enough tonight to enjoy, but I’ll take your company regardless of the condition. I suppose.”

“Jus…jus says so. You love me, yeah?”

“You’re _so drunk_ right now, this was a horrible idea,” she catches the glass as he misses the table and nearly drops it straight to the floor. “I’m too bloody young to have to wait on you like a sick child.”

“ _Say it_.”

“ _Nonsense_. What good would loving you do me? Worse than _nothing_ , you awful _pirate_ …” she yawns. She opens the latch on one of the windows and pushes it out, dumps the basin she usually uses to watch her face in and brings it to the bedside table with it’s raised ledges to keep items from rolling off it as the ship rocks. Just in case he’s sick in the morning, so she doesn’t have to either clean it up herself or listen to him grumble while he cleans it himself.

She’s sure to still lie on the other side of him so he can reach the basin from the bed.

“You don’t?”

“ _Silver_.”

“I’ve spend…..the las’ _year_ a-thinkin’ you loved me.”

“…Maybe I—some girlish thing.” It’s not as if he’ll remember half of this conversation anyway. “Some girlish feeling that I thought was love, once upon a time, for a man you didn’t turn out to be,” she’s turned away from him but feels him cling to her, like the sick child she accused him of being.

She rolls over, and he rests his face against her chest, not minding her breasts. It’s not sexual, this position he’s in, and that almost worries her.

“So you don’t no more?”

“I was a girl that I really wasn’t, and I felt something that wasn’t quite love for a man that didn’t really exist. I thought I was an innkeeper’s daughter and granddaughter on my first adventure, and that you were a kind man and a cook, and maybe I could bring you back to meet my Grandma and maybe—maybe you wouldn’t fall in love with anyone and by the time I was grown up—“ it’s an admittance, that she wasn’t then _quite_ a grown-up. But he’s drunk beyond memory, so what’s a single word of all of her words matter? “—maybe you would still be my friend and marry me. I could take time away from sailing and marry you. Stupid, wasn’t she? The miserable girl I used to be.”

“Cottage an’ hens an’ kids…you’d miss the sea.”

“I don’t love you, Silver,”

“ _Fuck.._.”

It’s not the laugh she expected, or the relief.

“Silver?”

“Thought—it might make ‘t easier…”

“Make _what_ easier? Silver?”

“Nothin’,”

He’s quiet long enough that Jim sighs, bends in to contour where he’s curled into her, and kisses his forehead, she holds him close, stroking his hair when he doesn’t lift his head from her chest. He better not get sick on her later, she thinks, but she can’t be upset with him. Not here. Not like this, him holding onto her and talking drunken absurdities.


	13. Love Worse Than Drunkeness

_"...you don’t even realize you’re a-makin’ the worst miscalculations of your life ‘til it’s too buggered late."_

Those were his own words. Silver runs them through in his head, casually refusing to consider the other half of them.

_Miscalculations_.

It's been either four weeks, or six since the last time Jim had her courses.

He hopes he forgets that, by the time he wakes up in the morning with a raging hangover.


	14. Your Attention

Jim wakes before dawn to the highly unpleasant sound of Silver heaving into the basin she left by the bed.

“I told you so,” she grumbles.

“Fuck off…”

She ignores him, in favor of siting behind him, and taking the ribbon off one of his braids to tie back all his hair in case he’s does it again; it’s what he’d done for her the first time she had gotten sick after drinking too much. She kisses his shoulder, and rubs his back for a moment before slipping around him to go and dress.

“Do you want anything?”

Despite looking quite green, Silver still watches her shimmy into her snug trousers, and pull on the cut-off shirt. It’s absurd, how bad he always wants her; _she_ wouldn’t want her given options.

“…Bring me clothes—and the leg. I’ll be fine…”

“You look like _death_.”

“Head feels like I broke it—oh, _don’t open the damned curtains_.”

Jim pouts and covers one of the windows again in the moth-eaten fabric they were unable to sell. It had been her idea, to turn everything but the necessities into easier to carry riches.

Silver’s miserable moan technically wasn’t much different than the sound he’s make with her hand around his length, but it lets her down.

She had thought they’d at least _try_ and have sex last night, but he had fallen asleep too quickly. True, it had been nice to hold him, but she felt—well, she _wanted_ him. There was a heat in her belly and she didn’t _itch_ , but felt some annoyance lower down that could only be remedied by some part of him. She isn’t picky about _which_ part of him, either. And now it looks as if they’re not about to get up to anything for at least several more hours.

“Go, they’ll be tacking the sails for this wind…we’ll be movin’ _too_ fast. Help them and get a direction on us. I want to be south as we can before the month’s out.”

“Where are we going to ride out the storm season, then? It’s _worse_ in the Spanish Main, you said so yourself!”

“We can talk _later_. Now _go._ ”

She has a sense that he’s trying to keep from making even more of a disgrace of himself in front of her.

“Why _did_ you drink so much last night?”

“I don’t remember. Lost track, likely.”

Jim rolls her eyes, and braces her shoulder at the sound of Flint’s wings flapping. A moment later the parrot is on her, beak gently nipping at stray lock of hair, and she walks out, leaving the cabin unlocked.

* * *

Silver was on deck not long after that, but once her watch on deck was over, he caught her by the back of her shirt.

“Our cabin, tonight. Get something to eat early, and then go back.” he growls into her ear, low enough the crew cannot hear, “I owe you something….”

* * *

“I needed this…” she hums, her hand on his wrist, giving it the pressure where her body begs for it.

“Lusty wench,” it’s an insult, she thinks loosely, but it’s met with a wet kiss she can barely return for how he has her gasping.

“I’m no more than what _you’ve_ made me— _oh…_ ” Silver’s fingers are so much longer than her own. Besides, hers could never quite reach in at that _angle_ , and getting to the place where— “ _That_ , right _there—_ keep doing that…” she lets go of his wrist in favor of pulling a pillow over her face to shout into as he gets her closer.

“Quiet down, darlin’, or I’m going to be spent before long,”

“Care— _Careful_ , I do want you yet,”

“I’m right here?” his fingers stop their slight curling, stroking motion.

“Don’t stop! You know what— _I mean—“_

He starts, quicker than before, his thumb just barely brushing at her too, making her hips jerk. No sooner does she reach the height of it, he slows down again.

“What are you— _Silver_ , please?” she presses into his touch but he withdraws just as much.

“Tell me what it is you want, darling, and I’ll let you go.”

“Do it or I’ll finish it myself.”

Apparently it’s the wrong answer, as his free hand grips her thigh tighter, the ghost of a threat not to run off, and his other drags her up to the edge once again, still, without letting her fall in.

“I want _you_.”

“Told you, girl, I’m _here_. What more do you want?”

“Let me have— _some_ pride...”

“You’re flat on your back in front of your captain, naked as a newly hatched bird, _pride_ doesn’t have a _role_ here…”

“As if I haven’t had _you_ pinned down _and_ tied to the bed posts!”

“I didn’t say _I_ had any pride either, darling.”

_These games…the cards, the flirting, the bickering, the talking, and if he calls me darling one more time I might forget my own name._

“Silver, let me _finish_ ; I want to have you before I’m done coming down…”

“What exactly is it you want from me? Specifically?”

“You have all the _charm_ of a shark, you _disgusting_ man.” She writhes at his touch, but it’s no use, she’s stuck with him now, she can’t ever fathom feeling like this with anyone else. “Do you make all your women talk like this?”

His tone changes.

“No. There weren’t none that I wanted to hear say it as much as you.”

Jim doesn’t care much for this new tone, even as it’s octave is so concordant to something she’s buried so far back in her mind that she climaxes immediately at the soft baritone.

She takes a deep breath, abdominal muscles trembling, sigh turning to a whine as he pulls his fingers from her unceremoniously and wipes them on sheets that are in desperate need of washing. Jim makes half a note to try to clean them the best she can in saltwater in the morning.

“I want your cock.” She manages to say it smoothly, without stuttering. Her face is quite red. “I want it and I want it _in_ me, and I want you to make me come with it. Happy now?”

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” he opens his trousers, and Jim isn’t turned off of him, but—

“Wait a minute,”

“For you? I’d wait a lifetime.”

_But you didn’t wait_ ….

“You’re such a liar,” she can’t even look him in the eyes as she accuses him. Afraid he’d be amused by the truth or else argumentative that he was being honest. “I want—“ she’s not entirely sure she even has the words for it either. She’s never _had_ anything…

_Who are we kidding? Even without love, this is a relationship. We’re a_ pair _._

There was a wanted listing in Port Royal for the captain of the _Walrus_ and his mistress.

Jim reached for his hand, bit her lip when she felt her own wetness on it but her fingers pressed alongside his. They really were quite longer than her own, his palm dwarfing hers. Despite the larger scale, their calluses, his were still somehow graceful.

“You’ve got little hands,”

She thinks: _I have young hands_.

She says: “Yours are nice. They have stories.”

“You always did like stories. What were you going to ask for?”

“Tell me what you want so badly about _me_. It’s only fair.”

He laughs at that.

“True, darling, true…let’s see…your southern seas are the most _delicious_ thing I’ve ever tasted…” his eyes look up for a split second but she catches it. Looking for a reaction enough so he doesn’t have to say too much. “Your hands are soft, no, no, don’t argue. Hauling ropes or not, they’re still softer than mine. Always liked those big siren eyes of yours—your pout too, dunno if that’s just your lips or if you’re always poutin’, but if I stare at them too long I can feel them on me.”

It’s so much that she almost can’t take it, but she doesn’t stop him either. She wanted him to stutter something crude to make her squirm. She didn’t expect this—examination.

“You’ve got a freckle between your earrings on the left ear, makes it look like you missed the mark the first time you tried to put it in. Your neck bruises very easily…” she can feel the reverb of his voice in every nerve ending. She’ll suck him if he wants; she wonders if that’s his goal here.

Still, he continues: “And your _breasts_ …pink and _perky,”_ his pinch at one of her nipples feels less sensual and more—itt’s not _friendly_ , but it’s…it’s _something_. Affectionate, perhaps as close to gentle as he can get. “Your heart beats so fast when someone touches you,” despite the charm he’s attempting, despite the effort he’s putting into whatever show this is, he’s awkward when he pushes her back against the bed. He leans down over her, kisses down her sternum to her belly. “Slightly soft, with hard muscle too, you’ve gotten strong.” He kisses her just below her navel but pauses. His lips freeze against her skin and she leans up to look at him.

He’s staring at her in mild fear.

“Silver?”

“You’re a blue dawn after a storm.”

“So you speak in nonsense when you’re drunk _and_ when you want me,” she tousles his hair; it’s already half fallen out of the tie she put in it this morning. Really, he should plait it more often, and she’d tell him so if she didn’t like it loose so much. His lips have wandered to the mostly-healed ursa minor on her hip. Her knee nudges at his where she knows ursa major stands out in fresh, bright blue. “You only like me this much because I let you do whatever you like with me.”

“Nah. Liked you before you opened your legs… Me and you, cabin girl; on the seas or under it.”

“On the seas or under it…”

“That’s right.”

In a story, this is the scene that it would end on, Jim thinks. In a story, they would be married, Jim thinks. In a story, there would be love.

But this isn’t a story, and he pushes his trousers down just slightly farther, and fucks her.

* * *

Jim leaves him to work at the desk.

There’s a bit of guilt that he’s taken to wanting to sleep close to her, but she’s overwhelmed by the way her world has been.

She fills the log for the day that they had forgotten, makes note of the brawl that broke out between a few of his men and the gunner. She draws an interlocked set of constellations, and is reminded of a position that Silver had tried with her last month. It had left her scandalized and blushing _all_ over even as it led to a mutual orgasm like they didn’t usually manage to reach without her on top of him.

Any way that they connect is vulgar in its perfection. His mouth on hers feels like it shouldn’t be there, but the rare moments she’s witnessed kisses between other adults, they were nothing like what they had. Their twinned fingers felt like locks and keys—to say nothing of how they fit in together in bed. His height sitting is perfect for her to rest her chin on his shoulder behind him, and he’s tall enough that she can hide under his when she draws him close in some sort of embrace. She even likes the flow of their voices—they’re both excitable people, easily brought to laughter and voices raised in passion, joy, interest.

If some god rose from the ocean, commanded her to wed or to die, she would choose Silver. He’s so warm even where she always feels cold. She doesn’t shiver in her sleep anymore, she doesn’t wake constantly at every sound.

Even falling asleep would be easier, if only he didn’t _snore_.

If only she hasn’t watched him kill a dozen men and rob twice as many ships.

Her stomach turns at the thought, and she ignores it. She looks over to where he’s half asleep, post-coital haze, reaching over to the bedside table to stroke at Flint’s feathers.

“We should stop before we’re too far south. I know you want to try catching a ship out of Porto Bello, but maybe wait until we have more guns. All the caravels are accompanied by man o’wars in those parts…”

Business talk was always interspersed with the rest of their private talk any more, and it made Jim feel more at ease with the idea of piracy.

“Where are we going to put any more guns on this ship?” Silver pushes himself up against the headboard, Flint hopping to his shoulder and tugging at a thin braid.

“If we had more deck space we could mount long nines at the bow.”

“Absolutely _not_.” There’s more venom in his voice than she’s heard since… Well, since a time she tries very hard not to remember.

“What’s wrong with them?”

“Do you what happens when you retrofit a long nine to the top deck?”

“You look really intimidating?”

“ _No_ , you get weakened boards. You can’t attach them without custom mountings.”

“Then we can take the mountings too when we take the guns.”

“Do you know why I can’t never lay you _quite_ the way you deserve?”

“What does _that_ have to do with—“

“Why I can’t climb things, or run if we have to? I used to be able to swim! Did you know that? Captain Flint’s _moron_ of a first mate brought those long guns squawking and laughing, golden son he thought he was. And what does he do? Hooks them to the deck. And what happens? _Crack_ , the backfires rolls it right out of it’s moorin’s and into _me_.”

It gives Jim pause.

Stories on every scar, and a tour of lips around each other’s bodies, she could fill books with the tales his skin told if she wasn’t so selfish as to want to keep them all to herself. But neither of them referenced _that_ , at least not in here, not when it didn’t benefit him to appear weaker, to appear unfit. In here the only time it was mentioned was when it was an obstacle.

“Fine. Then the only choice I see is for us to steal a _bigger_ ship.”

“We haven’t filled contracts yet.”

“We can fill them with whatever’s on the ship.”

“And then let the men all run off? We need a crew.”

“Not if we take a ship _close_ enough to a pirate port to sail it on our own.”

“You’re a dreamer, darling.”

“Last year you were talking about us having a _castle_ and now a brig is too much to ask for?” she sets down her pen and closes the logbook, weaving between junk and furniture in their messy cabin. She never bothered to dress more than her robe, and as it hangs open he watches her hungrily. “You were _always_ the one with gold in your eyes,” she shrugs the robe off and straddles his lap with a dramatic, resigned sigh. “And now we can’t even have a _real_ ship.”

“Don’t be so _glum_. South of Kingston there’s an English dock the private ships rest at. Navy doesn’t touch it, it’s completely untaxed. Rich men’s toys. We’ve used it before, to dock for storms when caught off-guard—grease a few palms and there’s no real worry about the law. We’ll take the first one we find, keep our men for now. Trade it for an older man-o’war in Nassau to Hornigold—he always preferred something shiny and new over something useful-like. “

“I suppose that works…” her pout is exaggerated but her subtle rocking motion isn’t.

Silver wraps her up in his arms and kisses her forehead.

If he slapped her it wouldn’t have shocked her anymore.

“You’ll see, we’ll be the king and queen of the Spanish Main before we’re through. I can already see the crown on your pretty head.”

_I don’t want to be a queen_.

“Do you want the attention that would come with being a king?”

“I want _your_ attentions…” his hands work their lazy way down to her hips, encouraging her previous motions.

“Then how is it _I’m_ the lusty wench…neither of us can keep our hands off each other long enough to rule anything bigger than this miserable sloop, or even to rest for very long.”

“It’s not so late—one more go of it, and then we get some sleep, yeah? Then we see about this new endeavor in the morning.”

“I like the sound of that,” she smiles, and leans down to kiss him on the mouth. His hands hold the sides of her face with some kind of—of _reverence_ she doesn’t trust, and she bites his lip, making him move in time with her as he starts to stiffen. Someday, maybe, these moments where he seems to forget she’s just some scrawny cabin girl he likes to lie with will vanish, and she won’t feel so tempted to admit to herself just how in deep she is.

“I’ve taught you well,” he says with audible pride.

“Mmmhmm…”


	15. The Choices of Good Men

It’s a brutal, _mocking_ thing that makes her want to tear it off the wall, tear all the advertisements off the wall, _tear the whole wall down_ …

‘Captain of the _Walrus_ , Name Unknown, and his Mistress, and his Crewe. Crimes of Piracy. Murder.’ It was smaller than many of the broadsides, hardly larger than the front sheet of a newspaper, but the ship’s title caught her eye immediately.

So many ships around the world were named for oceanic life, for birds, for famous nobles, royals, and myths. To think that in order for someone to choose _that_ name for a ship meant that the person had to have served on one of the same title before was _absurd_.

The world is not cruel enough to leave a bright girl like Jim Hawkins dead under rubble, _under a trap you let happen_ , while the man who seduced her to turn her back on those who wanted to look out for her would _survive_. If he did and she crossed his path again she would kill him. No questions, no bravado, no declaration of the intent for revenge, merely a pistol pulled from her bag and a shot and a body to leave on the backdoor step of the medical college.

Doctor Livesey unclenches her fists, and flexes her fingers in their gloves. Finery and fine clothes. Money and status afforded by the gold that Jim died for.

Livesey was here to retrieve a letter from “Jim” for her ailing grandmother.

The inn was currently empty, locked up for lord knows when, and Livesey had taken the poor woman into her home, the better to care for her. Bristol’s coal-thick air gave her cause for concern, that it would further aggravate Mrs. Hawkins’s chronic chest pain, but time was short enough that it didn’t matter. Nearby she could keep the woman comfortable, and keep the woman in the dark.

Her sight was so poorly she couldn’t tell that the handwriting on these letters was the doctor’s own as she read them aloud to her.

“ _Dear Grandma,_

_I’m doing wonderful out here in the sun, but don’t fret, I’m not getting_ too _much sun either. It’s beautiful and I’m set to sail this month on the most lovely merchantman you ever did see. I’m studying to be a ship’s doctor now, and very soon will have to come home for school. You would love the flowers here where I’m staying between these most recent journeys, and the sweet rabbits that have made a home under the rosebush. I miss you so much._

_Love, Jim.”_

Livesey knew it was wrong, but for as little time as Mrs. Hawkins had left, it would be kinder than letting her know the truth: that they had failed in keeping her granddaughter safe. Livesey starts the walk back home, the flat above the offices she practices out of, and tries to convince herself that she’s done the right thing.

Mrs. Hawkins, bless the stubborn woman, just as Livesey expected she would, refused to write any information about her poorly health in any letters to ‘Jim,’ in fear it would make her quit her adventures to come home and run the inn instead.

_“Jim loved the sea, so much that she couldn’t bear to come straight home. We left her with a friend of Captain Smollet’s, and a young nurse I knew at school to study to sail and eventually become a ship’s doctor. She was always at my side on the voyage, so interested in my work. I told her she should come home for one more season, but after fighting those pirates, she saved us and I couldn’t refuse her wishes.”_

Livesey tugs her collar tighter against the brisk, unseasonably cold spring air, and tries not to think about Jim’s young bones lying in a cave, crumbled up with the bones of pirates.

* * *

Jim Hawkins tries to creep back into the captain’s cabin silently, having felt the oppressive air of the south get to her nerves for the first time in ages. Some stars and some sea breeze and she was feeling calmer. Headache either from the wine, or her upcoming monthlies—she missed a month again, just as she did last summer, but she never did have a predictable schedule.

She thinks that she succeeded in not waking her bedmate until she feels his hand run down her spine, his lazy kiss on the back of her neck. His touch has been giving her the strangest of butterflies recently, and she rolls over to kiss him properly.


	16. All We Are, All We Have

It’s not _noticeable_ , Silver thinks, staring at his partner as she struggles to button the left row of her double-fronted breeches. If not for the consternation on her face the change would be… _subtle_. And she’s been eating more and more often than she likely ever did at home. Drinking more too.

The easiest way to prevent this would have been as easy as pulling out of her.

It’s the least he usually does with women, if there’s nowhere around to buy a skin. Maybe it was the fact that he doubts that he and Jim could share blood. Maybe he just wanted to relax afterwards for once. He doesn’t think straight around her. He should have left her on the _Triton_ , the bloody _distraction_ she is. Like he’s supposed to be able to think about anything that resembles _precaution_ when she’s so close, and wet, and hot.

A long string of women dotted the map of his past: some beautiful, some merely _there_ , some charmed into bed, some who chased him, and a few he chased. A few he even might have loved. His black heart still loves what’s it’s own. Sounds like something he heard somewhere: that even a sinner will love a sinner.

…But it had been ages since a girl really _pursued_ him. Some people around The Spy-Glass heard of him, of course, and his bed there wasn’t _cold_ exactly: pirate women who wanted to brag that they had taken the devil for a ride.

Of course, they’d leave out the fact that they found him cooking in a dockside tavern in Bristol. A marked contrast to Jim Hawkins, who had watched the ship’s cook with a longing she didn’t have a name for yet.

And he isn’t a cad! A bad man, a murderer, a pirate, but he tried to shove her off of him a few times, pulled out of her too, but she was always so _petulant_ about it. Never said nothing, but looked at him like she was so afraid she’d done something _wrong_.

If it’s true, she’ll probably panic, and want to be rid of it.

He doesn’t like the knot in his gut that forms at that idea.

It’s all—it’s _mad_ , it’s not possible, she’s told him as much. She bleeds unpredictably, some months hardly at all and others heavy enough he’s worried for her health.

He continues to watch her dress.

She hops a little bit trying to pull the breeches off in favor of another pair, and her breasts bounce. They have work to do but he wants her in their bed. Perhaps even just to sleep. Clothing looks unnatural on her. He used to think it’s been years since he wanted a woman this badly, now he’s not so sure he _ever_ wanted a woman like this; he already misses her little hands on his chest and her quiet snores she denies.

Jim catches his eye and she walks back over to him, shirtless.

“What are you staring at?” she teases softly.

“You look _edible_.”

She blushes, leans over, and kisses his cheek before her parting words: “You’re welcome to eat me later then.”

He’s still staring at her as she pulls a shirt on and walks out to work her watch, Flint flapping out after her, and Silver realizes he’s still watching the door after she’s gone.

All the mess in his head where she was involved, a tangle of grey, green, and stormy blue….Jim means the world to him. But how much gold is the world worth? What has he called her most recently, partner? He isn’t sure he was being honest.

He doesn’t know what honesty is anymore or where captain, cook, and quartermaster, where Bess’s Johnny, Marianne’s Jack, and Madame Silver’s ‘ _boy’_ all begin or end. Which ones he’s buried and which ones were real. Which one was the one that Jim was in love with—he has to contend with _that_ at some point too. At least if she’s in love with him she’ll be less angry about the—

_It’s not as if William Kidd didn’t have a small army of children_!

It only serves to tangle the mess. He could leave her ashore somewhere, she could do what she wanted with— _it_ , if she even kept it, leave it with some family or a home. Then he could come back for her the following year.

_If_ he came back—he doesn’t know, and it’s…well he doesn’t want anything to do with the morbid things, with the fact she might want him to marry her. That’s it’s own joke, honestly, he could declare them married as a captain and England would consider it legal. He supposes that’s an idea, if it would placate her before leaving her off.

Then he could start over again, meet another woman with stars for eyes—there’s enough out there, someone who…

Knew the unspeakable fears of marooning, someone who has seen him high and low and knows how to work with his moods. Understands the way that he talks, who talks the same—and wasn’t a terrible sailor either. Who keeps ghosts at bay. Someone who looked at this old mangled pirate with the same little grin that she gave him, like they were both children conspiring to steal apples from a cart.

All the times she’s missed a week here, surely _nothing_ —

_She’s lost one already_.

Unlikely. It’s unlikely, it’s—

He has to go out on deck; he doesn’t like leaving her alone with his men for too long.

It’s nothing at all.

* * *

Another week goes by, Jim still doesn’t show any outward changes, other than complaining she’s been drinking too much sweet wine, and can’t fit in her snug trousers any more. Silver tells her he doesn’t mind; he tells her he likes her body with or without the curves.

She’s grown shrewd and a bit more practical, a bit more _piratical_. She doesn’t act as quickly as he does, but she thinks longer than he does, and has made observations during the taking of prizes that have played well in their favor

Noticing that the man in the crow’s nest of the last ship they took had a rifle. Her voice hissing quickly as she saw the slightest movement, _“Silver get down!”_

A bullet is still buried in the main mast behind where his head was.

It’s not the first time that she’s noticed something that saved his life.

They win that prize, another thousand reales in gold coin; some gold and silver pocket watches. A few barrels of wine. It’s not worth the fight they put up, and out of spite, Silver orders his men to bring over all shot and powder too.

He watches Jim pace the cabin that night, seething anger, he assumes. It was a wasted day, wasted effort, and wasted time. Nassau on the horizon and Jim’s already talked him into arranging for the exchange of ships _beforehand_ , which is not something that would have occurred to him. Then they’ll leave this rotting old schooner in Kingston’s private docks in the dead of night in favor of a rich man’s topsail schooner, perhaps even a small brig. Then as planned, trade it for an older gun ship in Nassau. He likes the idea, _their_ idea. If Jim was just _slightly_ better at sailing he’d make her first officer—sure, his men would mutiny, but she’s _clever_.

He’s still thinking it over, the logistics, and what they’ll do if there’s no one interested in the trade, and where else they could find an unregistered gunship, when he hears Jim sniffle. It doesn’t bother him, but it disrupts his thoughts enough to make him look up, and he sees her, tears trailing down her face as she makes a halfhearted attempt to tidy the cabin.

“It wasn’t that bad of a prize,” he tries to joke. Jim ignores him. “Put your nightgown on. Haven’t seen you in that for a while.” He loves the look of her in it. Even now, tan from working in the sun, she looks like a pretty ghost in that white thing. It was made for a woman taller than her, and it trails behind her when she walks in it. If there’s a lantern nearby, or early dawn is watching, he can see through it to her rosy breasts and the shadow between her legs.

She undresses, hunched over the trunk of clothes, and pulls it on over her head. Her hair’s getting longer too. Plenty to stroke, to pull. She’s still crying.

_Hell._

“Were you going to sit up for a while?” she asks, in a voice so small he’s brought back to the first nights trapped on that godforsaken island, when she would ask him how long until rescuers came.

“Thought I’d surprise Abrams and takeover at the helm for a while. Haven’t sailed by starlight in an age.”

“Oh.”

“Were you going to bed?”

“I—I can wait for you.”

“You can sleep. I don’t think I can have enough of you, but this morning can tide me over until tomorrow.”

“That’s—fine. Maybe I’ll read…” she tugs at one of the lace cuffs of the gown, and he almost doesn’t notice, too busy cataloging the way the bruises on her neck stand out against the white silk.

“Don’t read too far in the Greek one, I wanted to hear more of it.”

The look on her face.

He knows what she wants.

She wants him to _stay_. He wants to see if she’ll ask: does she think of herself as his partner, or does she falsely see herself as a mistress, a wife?

“If I fall asleep, wake me when you’re back?” she asks in that small voice again.

“That’s all you want?”

Jim bites her lip and shakes her head. Her eyes blink hard a few times before she opens them, staring him down, hollowly.

“It’s a trick, Silver,” she smiles nervously, “I know you too well. I can’t ask you, or you’ll use it as fuel.” There’s bitterness, tiredness in her young voice that almost— _almost_ —hurts him.

“Do you want me to stay, girl?”

“I’m not a _child_. I don’t need looked after.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“ _Don’t_. Don’t ever stay or—or do something because you think I want it. I don’t want that guilt. I don’t.”

_Bloody women_. There’s a reason he never kept a mistress on a ship.

Fuck.

Well, what’s wrong with it? She makes a fine mistress. Boyish, young, and more clinging than the image the title traditionally conjures up, but why not? People already think it of them.

“It’s late…” he’s too tired to put effort into walking, coming up on five years without his left leg and he’s still half not-used-to-it and half tired-of-it. Everything is so bloody difficult. He undresses without finding something to wear to bed—by the time he’s done dealing with the leg, he’s always annoyed, and besides that, he likes the feeling of Jim’s skin and silk gown against himself.

On one hand, if he comforts Jim right now through whatever’s bothering her, he’ll get to fuck her again. On the other hand, if that happens she’ll start thinking they’re lovers.

She seems satisfied that he means he’s staying the night, and looks lighter for it.

“I can— do you want anything?” she asks. He searches her face, unsure if she realizes she’s just done what she told him not to do.

“How’s about not offering things to me as a reward for not being a prick? I’ve got a low standard of decency, darlin’, don’t try to train me into being a worse man.”

Jim looks horrified until he smiles at her.

“Besides,” he flops back onto the bunk, ropes holding up the mattress sag as if they need tightened. He can’t do anything that low to the ground that also requires movement, and she’ll have to do it. For now he ignores it, the same as he ignores the silhouette of Jim from the side, and how—not quite flat she looks. She’s sill skinny, it still could only be—well, _anything_ —

“Besides what?”

“I…don’t remember what I was saying— _AH_. Besides, better to lie back in here than stand out there in the wind all by my lonesome.”

“You _love_ sailing at night.”

“Tomorrow night. You can come out with me and keep me awake.” He gets bored when he’s alone, always did, but never complained seeing as the alternatives were never quite this good.

“Silver?”

“Yes?”

“You almost—“ she starts to cry again, but to her credit, her voice only falters slightly, “You almost _died_ today. How—how are you so _calm_ about it?”

“I’ve got you to stress about it apparently.”

“Silver— _I care about you._ And—if something happened to you, your men…I told you. I’m not a child. I know what they _think_ of me. I know what they say.”

“Jim—“

“Conner says you should _share_ me. I heard—“ her face contorts, he assumes she’s trying not to cry, but it looks _painful_. “I heard him say that—I should be kept a pallet off the galley for whenever someone wants me.”

He could be gallant, say he’ll go and kill the man now, but they both know it’s not true. They both know that he knows, and know that he’s heard it and heard worse, and that he has done little to stop it.

“I always kept you locked in here for a reason.”

“I’m not a toy, am I? They’ve said that’s all I am, that’s why I’m navigator. They call me a—“ she pauses, looks away and then back to meet his gaze steadily. “I don’t mind being _your_ whore, I just—I don’t want anyone else touching me.”

“Oh, cabin girl—“

“Really! I don’t mind it, not when it’s _you_ —but I don’t want to stop being a _person_ either.”

_She’s just a bloody kid_.

“You’re not a _toy_ , you’re a mistress. And I don’t pay you enough to be a whore.” The latter is a joke, and he hopes it lands.

Jim smiles, if only briefly. Good.

“And I swear I didn’t think of the danger I’d be in first—when I thought…what would happen if something happened to _you_. I’m afraid for you. You’re all I’ve got.”

He nods towards the slim portion of the bunk he’s left for her, and has to move over when she finally pulls both her pretty legs onto it, sitting up next to him.

“In case you didn’t notice,” he worries about saying it, how she’ll read it, but what’s it matter, this whole mess is a joke, “ _You’re_ all I’ve got too.”

“You could replace me in a day.”

“I _could_ find another woman in a day. I _couldn’t_ replace your clever head.”

“Then you could find a clever sailor and a woman. Not too hard, surely.”

He’s not so sure he could find a woman to replace her very easily either; one of her shape, size, weight, and height. One who suits him quite this well. It doesn’t matter that she’s not the beauty a few of his past lovers were, she’s—

_She’s just some peasant girl, she’s no one from no where._

“Go get the logbook, and bring me a pen,” he says.

“Sorry?”

“Well, go on!”

Jim slides off the edge of the bunk, with a deep breath and fetches them. He sits up again

Silver still can’t read, despite Jim’s childish attempts to teach him to write, but he sees the ‘J’ of her name on the articles, and crosses out the agreed prize she signed for. He adds three zeroes to the end of it.

“Sign that, “ he says, passing the book back over to her.

“What’s—“

“Unless you commit an offense worthy of your removal from my crew, you’re here by contract until you’ve earned that,” he points to the number, an impossible amount, not without being willing to stay around at least five years. “After which, you can choose to leave, or I can choose to replace you, but once we have a haul like that—why would you ever want to go?”

“You’re mad.”

“What?”

“It’s a paper—it’s not any more binding than anything else you could say it’s—“

“Would you just sign it, luv?”

She does, and then takes it back to the desk. Her face still drawn, even as she settles beside him again. It’s a misery that most would say exceeds her age, but he’s seen enough of the world to know that misery does not discriminate by years. Jim’s eyes shine with tears as she turns down the lantern.

“Thought you were going to read.”

“Changed my mind,” she whispers. She climbs back onto the bunk, and under the sheet, shaking. It’s too warm for any heavier cover, and Silver wasn’t accustomed to sleeping with _any_ covers, not in the oppressive humidity of the tropics at least, but Jim needed something on her to sleep. He’s gotten used to it.

Jim settles into the mattress of raw cotton and straw; when they steal the ship to trade, Silver plans to keep whatever fine feather bed he finds on it. He’s slept on them rarely—he’s never exactly _slept_ on them, actually, but as for other activities, he can attest to their superiority over theirs…If they ever get that castle, he’s getting them a featherbed with far more space than this miserable thing has.

Silver’s about half asleep when he notices that she’s still tense.

“Would sex improve your current mood?”

She responds by wriggling a bit closer, and kissing him softly. It doesn’t take long for her to kiss harder, surer, but the hand he reaches up her nightgown finds no sign of interest.

“Jim—“

“Keep touching me,”

“I’ve never _once_ a-known you to be so _dry_.”

“If you just—“

“Get some rest,” he can’t believe he’s saying it.

“Don’t you want me? I—I’ll be ready, I swear! Or I can use my mouth, I’ll—“

“What’s gotten into you?”

“ _You almost died today_. I’m—we’re _pirates_ but I—that’s not the first near miss and I—please…”

“I’m not goin’ nowhere…”

“I know but—“

“Are you happy here?”

“ _What_?“

“Do you like this? Working here? You said—on the island you would be a pirate.”

Jim laughs, and it makes her sound older: “What else would I do, Silver?”

“If the _Triton_ showed up again on the horizon would—“

“Does it matter? You just made me sign for—for I don’t even know how long.”

He wants to be angry at her. Last time he brought up the idea of her leaving she raged against it, begging to stay. She wants to be here, even when she can’t see it. Nothing should be this _bloody_ difficult. _He wants to be angry at her_ , but he can’t summon it. He blames on it the late hour.

Her hand in the silence reaches down to him, wraps her little fingers around his length delicately; less hesitant than she was last year, but not much better at it, her movements nonetheless make him shudder.

He takes her hand off himself.

“Not in the mood, darlin’,”

Despite the fear in her eyes, Jim rolls over. She’s shaking. He suspects she might be sobbing.

He doesn’t want to have to bother with comforting her, petting her until she gets over it, and like _hell_ is he about to _ask_ her why she’s so damned upset. If she’d just _say_ the words ‘don’t leave me,’ she’d feel better, but no. She has to be so _difficult_.

_It’s not worth all this_.

A young, eager lover in his bed—Jim’s right, she’s replaceable, but he’s right too: no one else would be exactly the same, and he is used to her.

Silver’s always been a creature of habit, despite his hatred of sitting still, and Jim’s a fixture in his life that he’d rather keep. After all, excluding the girls he grew up with, no one has been in his life _and present_ in it as long as she has, aside from a couple captains he used to sail under. He’s laid with her more times than any other woman he’s ever had.

Certainly no friendship ever lasted this long either.

Silver wonders which of them he changed her contract for.


	17. Chapter 17

Jim is so preoccupied with trying not to yawn that she doesn’t notice who it is who grabs her by the low waist of her trousers, but Flint’s annoyed squawk at being ignored gives her the offender’s identity before she can panic. Silver watches over her shoulders at his crew working, waits for a beat where all eyes are briefly turned away, and kisses her neck.

While she doesn’t quite consider what happened last night an _argument_ , they had made up for it this morning, and she’s sure to have bruises along her spine from how hard she was pressed up against the door of the cabin.

“You’re in a better mood.”

“You too,” she smiles, trying not to get either of them too excited in the middle of a watch. Fine, he’s captain and can do as he pleases, but the crew has been grumbling more often about how unfair it is that the captain can have his woman all hours of the day and no one else gets a taste. Jim shoves the worry aside to stand next to him for just one more moment.

“I can read more of Homer tonight,”

“We’re coming up on Nassau,” Silver says, “We could get some rest, then on land join in on whatever revels are going in town. You would like that?”

“I didn’t care much for the— _revels_ last time we were there.”

“Come on, luv; bars and inns, music,”

“Brothels.”

“Yes, and the girls in most of ‘em sing and play some kind of fiddle. Don’t you like dancing?”

“Last time we were there—“ she doesn’t finish her sentence.

“Even if you don’t believe that I like you, would you believe that I’m not about to pay for something that you’re so eager to just hand over?”

“Depends on how pretty the girl is.”

Silver grins, and leans down to speak lowly in her ear:

“Would _you_ want a pretty girl while we’re there?”

Jim turns bright pink.

“I—How would that--?”

“You’re not so sheltered, darling, you know it works. Or else we could find one to teach you. The madam only takes female patrons nowadays herself.”

“I—I don’t know. I’m—we’re _together_ aren’t we?”

“What do you mean? I’d be willing to share you for a night if that would ease your nerves about it.”

“I wouldn’t be willing to share _you_ ,”

“Jim—you would be in the _middle_ , not me. Unless, you wanted—“

“I don’t!”

“I thought you liked women.”

“I—well, _I think_ so. But I like you too. And I don’t want someone else—watching, or touching me or—I don’t like people touching me. I don’t like the idea of someone else around you like that.”

“A jealous lover, are you then?”

“ _Yes_ ,” she says firmly, instantly. Silver chuckles.

“Don’t tempt me to incite your anger.”

“Why would you want me angry?”

“Have you already forgotten what happened this morning? You actually managed to wear me _out_ ,” he sounds genuinely impressed and Jim bites her lips together through a tight grin.

_Lover_ , he called her. Rather than reach for his hand, she tugs at his sleeve just the once and lets it go.

The sun is shining, the Caribbean spring burns her skin, her shirt is tied under her breasts again to try and keep cool. Her hair is pulled back in one of his ribbons. What was his anymore anyway? He’s wearing one of the shirts she uses to sleep in, and she’s sure that his current tie is a scrap left from her mother’s old chemise that she had worn to sea that first day out of Bristol.

There’s work to be done today, and miles to sail, and Silver claps her once on the shoulder before walking away.

Jim misses snow, and soft clouds, but the endless blue has grown on her too. The dark ocean that roared against the cliffs, or else spoke softly down by the cove in her past life was a different deity entirely. She’s tired, having slept poorly again, fighting nausea through the night alongside a week’s worth of increasing urge to start weeping at Silver’s vaguest dismissal of her, but for now the world is awash in light and her heart is weightless in her chest. If Silver doesn’t want her midday, she’ll spend her off watch on deck—far as she can get from his men, but she wants to watch for dolphins. Perhaps there’s some sheltered cove in Nassau where she can swim.

It’s something she’s grievously missed. In the cove, she would swim if the weather was even slightly warm, and there were ponds on the local farms, and the stream in the woods. Out here, on a ship all the time there’s so little chance to actually get into the water that she feels an unsettling urge to jump off the deck and vanish into the blue. She tried to explain it to Silver once, and he listened, amused through her meandering stories about learning to swim, teaching herself to do it, and how she once scared the farmer’s wife half to death when she came out from under the pond’s surface after everyone thought she drowned. Once she mentioned wanting to jump overboard however, Silver’s eyes widened in horror. She didn’t tell him that she has nightmares and dreams where she’s floating underwater, drowning without pain, and they’re preferable to the dreams where his knife enters her soft parts with all the grace and care of a calming caress in bed.

She dismisses it. There’s a school of flying fish, and they look so much like fairies that she has to forget that they taste delicious with some spiced, grainy mixture she had in port in Barbados. Out here on the water, the school of them looks like magic.

Occasionally colorful birds fly overhead, a sure sign that they’re getting closer to land, and even though Flint is perched up on the mizzen yard, somewhere he can keep an eye on both her and Silver at once, he shrieks at any bright plumaged interloper who gets too close.

If the crew was kind, she could spend her entire life here, and be satisfied with it.

* * *

Silver stretches, rolls his shoulders. That girl had some sort of _something_ going on in her head she needed to work out, and he had been more than glad to let her use him to do it. That fancy silk nightgown became a casualty of torn clothing and pulled hair; of him starting off by fucking her against the cabin door so hard that the hinges creaked. Jim kept squirming against him through the pain until she dragged him to the floor instead. He’s got bruises, bites, and scratches like he hasn’t known since the hellcat navy captain’s wife he laid in Charleston.

He reaches back to massage into the sore muscle around the base of his neck. He’s getting too old for three rounds of it rough and wild _before_ having to work the day.

He’s tried to _avoid_ doing it, but steals another glance at Jim up on the yardarm, as she helps raise sails to head slower into harbor. She catches his eye, licks her lips, and he can feel her tongue on his cock.

_Mistress_. She’s a lovely bluestocking for a peasant girl, with a head full of dreams but beyond that she still _practical_ and is turning into a fine sailor. He could do so much worse.

She’s got to be nearly nineteen or twenty; she’d mentioned a birthday at some point, and hasn’t for close to a year. Maybe he missed it. He doesn’t know his own birthday, not exactly, save that Jane had told him it was some time in September when he asked her. His mother had vanished for half of the previous year, according to the story. Spent the worst of the winter with a patron at his country manor. Silver used to like the idea that he was a lord’s son, set to inherit a small castle if only the man were to find him.

_“Which one of those girls is your mother?” Pew asked him, the one morning._

_“Madame Silver, sir. ‘S my last name too.”_

_The older man looked at him crookedly._

_“Thought they called you that because you were born in her henhouse.”_

It doesn’t matter, not one way or another, but he thinks about Pew’s body rotting in Black Cove’s pauper’s field, and wonders. If it’s true, he’s like as not to have siblings his age and older in half the ports of the Old World. It’s the reason that he never slept with the locals in Madagascar. He’s the only one called Silver though. That’s important.

Jim’s father from Cornwall near where Bess and her bastard infant are buried. He doesn’t think the ages would quite add up for there to be a relation anywhere. She talked about her mother, born on her grandfather’s ship, and moved from New Amsterdam city to Black Cove. She said there’s a painting of a ship that her grandmother had forgotten about, and when they were starving sold so many things of her grandfather’s to the squire, to other collectors and passersby with interest in the sea (he was a sailor, a captain of something, she didn’t know more), Jim had hidden the painting of the ship, preferring to go hungry, even as a child, than to lose it.

Some day, they’re going to have that castle. He’s going to hunt down that painting, wherever it is, and it’s going to hang above their fireplace alongside the colors of the _Walrus_.

He and Jim by lamplight patching the black, and Jim with the embroidering sharper tips on the crossed tusks…

He thinks about Darling’s Isa, and about Calico’s Anne, and about Blackbeard’s string of wives but the persistent rumor that he always went back to the Carolinas and his mistress there…

With her shirt tied high like this, and her trousers low, Silver can see bits of Jim’s constellation tattoos. He doesn’t trust his skills to do anything more complicated, but once they’re in Nassau he’ll take her to someone who can do more, get her an anchor, a feather, rope around her wrist like his own: omens and charms, to save your skin at sea. Supposedly a shark would keep you from getting eaten by one, but considering that’s likely the fate of the leg he lost, which was the limb he had the shark on…he’s not so sure. That leg had a mermaid too, Jim would have liked that one.

It’s a fine day, and his crew seems…less surly than usual too, so when there’s a shout down from the nest about French colors closing in fast on the horizon, Silver practically jumps at it. A small ship, an easy prize, and those French captains have so much jewelry and finery they could turn into easy money to any pirate in Nassau.

Maybe one of them will have a new silk dress for Jim. Or a robe, with an open front.

“Hawkins, Conner, Johnson—on the guns; _RAISE THE BLACK.”_


	18. Chapter 18

Jim rushes past two men on her way below decks to the cannons, and does her damnedest not to touch either of them. Mayhew is such a mountain of a man however, that she can’t avoid running against his side by accident, and she squeaks out an apology.

“Watch your footing…” his eyes rove up and down her, and despite the humidity and the heat, Jim gets goose bumps. He looks confused a moment, and then lets out a dark laugh that makes her hope he doesn’t survive this fight. “You’re looking _ripe_ , aren’t you, lass?”

She shakes her head, not understanding, not _wanting_ to understand—she’s not _pretty_ why do all these men want her so _badly_ , is it just that she’s the only woman? Sex is nice, but she can’t imagine craving it with anyone just because she hadn’t had it in a while. Silver was the first man she ever even _wanted_ to have it with.

In her hurry to get down before anyone else could speak with her, or Mayhew say something else that made her want to run for Silver’s worthless protection, she trips on the last rung of the ladder, and scuffs her elbow.

Shouting on deck.

Guns at the ready.

Conner standing beside her and she loads the cannon with shot; she hates working down here, but Silver won’t let her board a prize until it’s been properly surrendered. She waits for the call, hears her lover’s command and lights the canon, quickly covering her ears, almost dropping her flint.

She tries not to look at Conner, who thinks she’d best serve the crew if she was passed around like a dessert platter after supper every night. There’s a call on deck to hold fire, and she hopes, prays, begs that the French ship has raised the white, or is at least close enough that they can’t fire anymore. Their little guns don’t do much damage, and Jim primes it, and loads the next shot, pushing it back into position from it’s recoil.

Her back hurts, this morning was _so much_ , but it had satisfied every extreme high and low feeling she’d been trying to sort through. She should have had more than just the apples for lunch, but between the fact that she’s been gaining weight, and how hot it was she didn’t have much of an appetite, but now she’s nauseous _and_ hungry, and as she woozily tries to keep her footing, she notices that Conner’s gone, she—

\--She notices rough hands on her bare waist, gripping against bruises in the shape of Silver’s fingers.

“It’s not fucking fair, having to listen to you yelp like a strangled cat every bloody night,” he’s tugging at her hips from behind, pulling her against him, and she _feels_ him.

She vomits.

Conner shouts, cursing at her, and others have noticed. Demand for what was going on, Jim assumes, but she can’t hear _anything._ Everything’s slowed down as Conner backs up against the canon, and pulls her in by the waist again; those _awful_ butterflies in her belly start again, and she bites back on the bile in her throat.

Instead of fighting, she twists in Conner’s grip until she’s aside of the canon, and reaches down, sparking it with the flint.

“ _STOP FIGHTIN’ ME, OR I’LL HAVE THE OTHERS HOLD YOU D—“_

She heard screaming, as she fell onto the deck, her own sick over her trousers, shaking.

The canon had recoiled, right into Conner’s leg with a loud, wet crunch.

She can smell blood.

Someone hauls him off, she hears _things_ , hears him screaming still, but it’s all so distant…voices speaking; hate fills the stale air, and it smells like a gutted animal.

A chorus of cruelty:

“She did it on purpose!”

“Bad luck, girl on a ship…”

“We’ll hang her for it.”

“Let her work for us first.”

“I want a turn.”

“We’re not finished with you.”

_Grandma I’m so sorry_ …

* * *

_A dream, she can tell that much, that this not quite real, not happening the way she thinks it is. Silver is wiping her blood off of his hands; he pulls out a soft, plump heart from her chest and easily slips a needle and thread through it before replacing it, and then forcing the needle through something that looks like a dried bit of meat. He tucks his own blackened heard back into his chest. As he walks away, the thread stretches impossibly far, allowing him to wander, but she can feel its taught tug from inside her rib cage._

_“Why did you do it?”_

_“Isn’t this what you wanted?”_

_“No! Cut it!”_

_“But won’t that hurt you?”_

_She tries to pull on the thread to find him on the other end, but the tightness of it cuts into her palms._

* * *

Jim wakes up naked on sailcloth and immediately scrambles to stand.

“Steady there, girl,” his voice is low, and it’s the most comforting thing she’s ever known.

“Silver…. oh my God, I thought—“

“What the fuck happened down there?” he’s almost angry, but she knows that particular tone: she’s done something stupid, and he’s trying to berate her for it. She isn’t in the state to defend herself.

“How did I get back here?—Who—who took my clothes I –“

“I did, they were covered in blood and—I thought something _happened_ to you.”

Silver grips the desk, and kneels slowly; it’s not easy to get up and down. Jim sees a bucket of water and a few rags. He’s cleaned her off, must have checked for wounds after seeing how much blood. That part of the dream must have happened. She can still smell it still. Gunpowder and blood and vomit and—

At least the bucket was close.

“That’s it, easy girl, calm down…” he holds her hair back. Her nerves have settled, the butterflies stopped, and she breathes deeply, slowly, until the ship stops spinning.

“Did we take the prize?”

“Not much there, a few nice coats, one box had a dress for his lady…soft, I took it, maybe you could cut it into a new nightgown,”

She leans back against him, shaky, even though she feels more grounded now with him stroking her hair.

“Nothing else?”

“They were a short-term cartography mission,”

“Did you at least take some new maps?”

Silver smiles, she can hear it in his voice: “And all the paper, pencils, and pens,” her idea, and now they do it with every ship.

“Good,” she’s exhausted. Heat and fear. Heat and _shivering_. Silver continues rubbing her back, only stopping at one point to shrug off his coat for her. It smells awful, she told him it was stupid to wear it when there was no one to impress, but he likes it, and right now, it’s warm and it’s a cover.

“Did you light that canon on purpose?”

“Conner tried to—he kept _grabbing_ me—Silver, I want him off the ship. I know there’s articles, but I’m not leaving this cabin until he’s—“

“Jim.”

“Not until he’s gone! He threatened to have others hold me down—“

“He’s dead.”

Jim’s empty stomach lurches and she hugs herself.

“I didn’t—I didn’t kill him—“

“He was standing right on the canon, recoil snapped his leg in _half_ ; bone was splittin’ out.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“You meant to hurt him and you succeeded.” It’s neither accusation nor praise.

“That’s not enough to kill a man, I didn’t mean tot kill him.”

“He bled too much before they could close it up.”

“Oh.”

Jim cannot summon the goodness right now to be sorry that he’s dead; she’s only glad that he’s gone. Silver moves to stand up, but Jim (though awfully wobbly) beats him to it and offers her arm as counter balance. He accepts the help without complaint, moves his hand down her arm as he rises and takes hers.

“Thought you’d be safer below deck.”

“We’re never safe at sea.”

“Aye, but it’s better than living and dying a poor man in the city.”

“A poor man at sea?”

“On deck and under stars.”

“Even you talk about a castle.”

“One on the water, then. When our sailing days are over.”

She doesn’t know about a castle. All this misery and gore, and she understands, it’s better than living in the gutter, but all this hell for the chance of retiring a rich man. They’ve got the money now to retire modestly. Or at least to find a house; but she can’t see Silver doing any work that’s not on a ship.

_You wanted to bring him home to cook at the inn_ , the girl she was last year tells her. _Maybe, but I can’t make him do that again_ , she replies. Silver likes cooking, she suspects, at least a little. He insists on doing most of it himself, at least their own food. If they get a castle, they’ll have a nice kitchen with wide windows to keep it cool.

“We’ll have a little schooner of our own though. On a private dock,” she adds. She can’t imagine either of them never leaving dry land again.

He kisses the top of her head.

“Silver. You’re in too good of mood to have had a bad prize.”

A single, quiet laugh.

“There was a crate of—to be honest I don’t know _what_. It looks…wrong. Like water. But it’s _solid_.”

“You mean ice? This far south?”

“No—not _ice_ , Jim, don’t be thick; it…looks just like the ocean. I’ve never seen anything like it, not in all the entire world, Jim—if it’s worth somethin’ strange…”

“Does the crew know about it?”

“No.”

“Tell none of them. Put it in our chest.”

The crew is made of bad men, but she does not believe that that the fact gives her free reign to steal from their share of stolen goods. She’ll gnaw on the guilt later until her teeth hurt, but for now, she looks up to Silver’s proud eyes and lopsided smile—he smiles like someone who didn’t know how to do it until he was too old to learn properly.

“Jim, if it’s enough—“

Knocking on the door. Loud, hard, angry.

Something terrible is about to happen. She can taste it; both her hands hold onto both of Silver’s, and though he looks towards the door calmly, his fingers woven into her own tighten. _Is he afraid of his own crew? Has he always been afraid of them?_

Jim pulls their tangled hands to her lips and kisses the back of one of his quickly, before she reaches down to touch one of his pistols on his belt.

“Sit at your desk. Don’t raise your hands.”

He is an evil enough of a man to know what she means.

“Hide in the wardrobe—“ it would be pointless, everyone must know she’s in here, but the thought of not having to watch whatever was about to happen was too alluring, and she follows through. Maybe that’s why he told her to hide; not so she wouldn’t be seen, but so she wouldn’t _see_.

Silver talks over the sound of Jim trying to tuck herself into the wardrobe, her quiet whimper when the door doesn’t _quite_ shut. She holds her breath, counts slow, and

“Would you just come in? No need to break down the bloody door.”

Mayhew stomps in; she can tell from the heavy gait.

“A word, _captain_?”

“Or several?”

“Crew voted,” a pause. Jim wishes she could see his expression, for once. “Your pet is getting left in Nassau. We’re coming up on the south harbor.”

“Cannons recoil all the time,” Silver says, “If Conner was hungry enough to let his guard down, we’re better off with out the tosser.”

“It’s not a suggestion, captain. We’re following through with the articles until we all have our shares. Your pet isn’t part of the crew, and she stays in Nassau; she’s already not fit to work.”

“I hardly think—“

“She stays in Nassau or I’ll carve your brat out of her myself and throw them both over after Conner.”

_Your what_?

She hears Silver lean back in his chair. She considers the tight way her abdomen feels under her hand; not soft, but not muscle either. The weight she’s gained. A collection of images of every time over this past year that he had come apart inside her, all the moments of sighs and gasps and moans and rough thrusts, tender touches. Every time she wanted just once more before going out to work her watch, every time Silver would call her into the cabin midday. The months, if she’s being wholly honest with herself, since she’s bled more than a spot or two.

If this was possible, she doesn’t know how it didn’t happen _sooner_.

She considers too, the terrible, butterfly flutter she feels when she’s nervous, that she feels right now. _We’re in a lot of trouble…_ she thinks to it, before even fully accepting that _it_ exists.

“I hear you,” Silver says smoothly.

“Do you? The crew suggests we keep her on our deck until we’re in harbor. Just to be sure that nothing _funny_ happens… It’s just a few hours.”

“I don’t think the lot of you miserable bastards would need a collective ten minutes.”

“Drop the bitch in Nassau, we fill our articles, and you walk off the Kingston ship without looking back at us.”

A gunshot.

“Don’t think so,” Silver says, to no one in particular.

She plugs her ears with her fingers and tries not to scream.

“Jim? Come on out; we have a _few_ problems…”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a personal fault of mine that the page breaks here refer to a shift in POV rather than any lapse in time as they have meant so far.

By the time Jim turned thirteen, she had accepted that it was very unlikely she’d ever get to have her own family. Or _any_ family. True, she loved her grandmother, and they were a family, but the shadows of her parents, of her siblings still hovered in the corners of her eyes. Their laughter was always there in the creaking of the shutters against the storm. Her toddler sisters and brothers calling for her to come outside, down to the cove, and underwater until she died to join them. Someday, she had hoped she’d have her inn, her family, and with living voices, drown out the ghostly, cruel laughter and the lingering smell of moss and seaweed.

But there were enough farms around, enough cattle, sheep, and horses for her to have learned: children require a man who touches you, and everyone she ever met looked at her like she was an aberration. Then Livesey telling her, when her courses never came, not until she was nearly fifteen, that she might not be able to bear children.

Jim had understood: _when Grandma leaves, I’m going to be alone_.

_But not now,_ she thinks, hugging herself, she’s not alone. She has someone. An almost-someone. _Mine_. She thinks, a smile twitching at the corners of her lips, but the movement of the half smile immediately tugs at her face, and causes tears to drip. She isn’t sad, not exactly, but the surprise is too strong, and she’s all too aware that there was something _wrong_ in it’s existence. Or how it got here. Still, she knows it shouldn’t shock her so much, that she’s already so possessive of it. Her voice echoes in her own head, _mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine_ , the same as it does every time that Silver comes near her.

Silver is pouring two shot glasses of brandy.

“Guess you shouldn’t be havin’ too much of this.”

He had hauled out the corpse of Mayhew to the deck, threatened the men; they must have been scared of him enough, or else disloyal enough to the deceased quartermaster that Silver’s promise of giving them their earnings early to spend on wine and women on shore tonight sounded like a better deal than a mutiny. He asked Jim too, when they pulled up to the docks in the middle of the night, if she’d want to go ashore to which she replied only with a vicious glare.

“Stop pacing, you’re…” he trails off, but Jim had been ignoring him anyway. He drinks both the shots in front of him. “’ave got to discuss things at some point…When did you bleed last?”

“Not for more than a day since…oh. Oh, I think it was February—March?” her eyes widen as she counts down to where they are in June. She didn’t remember. Her courses were always uneventful, she didn’t— _remember_ them. And she _did_ assume in the interim that the spotting in her drawers was all she’d get. It’s how her courses had first started, a couple years ago.

“Shit.”

“That gives me a while though!” four months, five months. Her birthday is soon. She still isn’t _sad_ , not quite, but she notices that she’s crying again. It’s so _much_ …

…It’s been long enough that she doesn’t think that the fluttering sensation inside her is actually nerves.

“What’s the face for?”

“I didn’t—I thought I had…butterflies—“

“Butterflies?”

“But _it’s_ been _moving_ , I think.”

“You want it then?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Silver takes a long drink right from the bottle. “You know, don’t you girl? They can—those girls on the island—they have _methods_ to…make it go away.”

“But it’s not ready yet?”

“Jim… That’s the _idea_.”

“ _No!_ No, no, no, it’s _mine_. They can’t just—“ her face becomes flat at a terrible thought, “Do you want me to get rid of it?” she asked calmly.

“Hell, girl, this isn’t nothing to do with what I want—“

“It’s _not_ , you’re right, but tell me.” She has to know. She needs to figure what he’s thinking, because she can’t see it in his eyes if this was what he wanted now or later or never, and what choice would make him shelve her for good.

“I wouldn’t hold it against you either way.”

But it’s not entirely true, she thinks, watching him speak around the mouth of the bottle.

“You don’t want to be like Darling and Isa, and their children.” It’s not a question.

“They’re lucky. It doesn’t work like that for anyone else.”

“Do you think it could?”

“We aren’t _married_ ,”

“What’s it matter though?”

“ _Jim_ it’s—“ his voice is stressed, almost cracking, “You think you’re in love, but you’re a pirate. This isn’t—this isn’t how _any_ of our stories ever end.”

“I’m—“ Something in her had been pulled too tight and snapped. “I’m not some stupid _child_ who thinks the first person to look at her must adore her, must mean something,” but she’s all too aware…that’s almost exactly what she was. “And _you’re_ the one who started calling me your _mistress_ , unless you didn’t mean it,” her heart isn’t breaking, it’s merely numb, and her own tone is soft. Silver, who doesn’t want her to get rid of it, but doesn’t want to go to sea, but doesn’t want to take her or leave her…she isn’t sure what to make of him, if he’s anything at all anymore.

Silver rubs at his eyes, and Jim stands in front of the long mirror with his coat open. Her denial had been so strong, but it _is_ noticeable, considering how slender she is everywhere else. Right now her hand fits over the little curve with only a slight arch. She wonders how much larger it will get, and how big _it_ is now on the inside. Surely it must be quite small if it’s movements are so soft.

“Fine, fine, I did,” he takes another drink, and smiles. “I called you my lover too. Don’t think I didn’t notice I did that. And I like you! I mean that, but—“ he looks up at her, “For fuck’s sake—why are you so _damned calm?”_

“I’m _terrified_ but this is…well, women do this all the time? I’ll have to be on land for it…find a midwife, but I have months to go.”

“No, you don’t.”

“What?”

“You’ll have to stay on land, you’re right.”

“Well I’m not staying on _Nassau_ ,”

“Be reasonable,”

“I am being reasonable. It’s not a friendly town, and I doubt they have many midwives. Plus, you said yourself that the region is prone to terrible hurricanes.”

“Fine. Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know...”

Silver mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like Black Cove.

“Absolutely not, I can’t go back there!” she wonders, distantly, if he only said it to elicit a reaction, break the calmness he accused her of having.

“I’ll leave you off there, and come back for you in a year.”

“You can’t—You can’t just take me off on the grandest adventures of my life and then drop me back home like I’m some kid you found and want to return!”

“That’s not what—Just the year. Maybe more. I’d come back for you.”

Jim looks away from her reflection to meet his eyes. Her old sea cook. The man who made sure she didn’t starve on that island; who taught her to fish with a spear, and skin seagulls.

“You wouldn’t come back for me; we both know that. You’d sail off and I’d never hear of you again.” He also didn’t mention that he would come back for _them_ , just for _her_ , but she doesn’t bother to pick at that word choice of his.

He doesn’t argue, but smiles at her almost sadly.

“I’m going below; I’ll make dinner. You want anything specific?”

“I like everything you make.”

“Right, right…”

* * *

Dinner together, a whole ship to themselves. They should be fucking under the stars, their sheets spread out on the deck, and bottles of wine opened and half empty.

Instead, Jim sits across from him at their desk, picking at fried flounder and peppers, looking morose. He wonders why she isn’t outwardly afraid, or even angry with him. Wonders if she can hear his thoughts, and now knows that the fight with the French ship was a rough one, and while she was out of it, it had sank with her few surviving men. Silver wonders about Darling, Calico, Low, Kidd. The pirates with children on shore. Jim looks so bloody _small_ hunched in on herself, sipping at grog that’s more lemonade than rum.

“All this time together, you’ve never been so _quiet_.”

“I haven’t known you _that_ long,” she retorts, pulling a bone that Silver missed out of her fish. “I’m not always talking.”

“We left Bristol in…April? It’s been over a year.”

Suddenly he doesn’t think that sounds like a very long time at all.

“My birthday is coming up,” she says flatly.

That’s something he can work with. Silver tries the sort of the smile that used to make her duck her head and grin when they were working together in the galley of the _Hispaniola_. A charmer’s lie that would make her blush something awful.

“We could go into the town tomorrow. Buy you something _nice_ for your birthday.”

“You didn’t get me anything last year.”

“You didn’t _mention_ it.”

“I thought I did?”

“If you did, at the very least we would have opened a nicer bottle of wine.”

“I didn’t think grownups talk about their birthdays.”

That’s grim, he thinks; poor Jim so sheltered that she keeps stalling on calling herself an adult, even now, at the cusp of twenty.

“Well now I’m askin’ you…do you want something?”

She just stares at him. He stabs into a pepper with his knife to eat off of instead of using the fork. His belligerent refusal to care about proper use to cutlery _also_ used to make her smile.

It wasn’t a whole day ago yet that she had ridden him so hard on the cabin floor that he had burn from the carpet on his backside, and now she’s barely speaking. There’s a set of scratches from her nails on his right shoulder that are still raw.

“My share should be enough for whatever I’ll need for—for it.”

If Jim ever saw him as a living myth, even a washed up one, she never made it the center of her affections for him. He’s got some respect for her on that account; not mentioning who he is, or the stories people tell. She never once boasted that she had laid Flint’s murderer. She just likes him as the man who taught her how to run a ship, from the kitchen to the crow’s nest. He doesn’t know what sort of man he is in Jim’s eyes but if he were to meet him in an alley, he’d probably rob him.

“At the least I’ll pull twenty pearls from my cut. Once we find a good goldsmith we’ll have them strung for you, or have them set in something. However you like.”

“I don’t need _twenty_ pearls.”

“Its—your age?” _lord she’s young_. Not horrific like, but enough that if he was taking his pick out of working girls at a bar, he’d find an older one.

“Silver,” she says, her voice gone hollow again, “I’m _seventeen_.”

“You— _You’re_ _seventeen_?!”

“You never _asked_ , and you know I look younger than my age, and—I know it too,”

“But you always talked like you were older—not, that you _sound_ old, I mean, but that too. You’ve been implyin’ for ages that you were older than that.”

“What difference does a couple years make?” she laughs, but it’s barren of humor or joy. He gets the feeling she’s only doing it to keep from crying instead. “And you do _not_ have the right to be bothered by my age after everything you’ve done to me.”

That morning, and so many other days and nights like it. A few memorable times of her on her knees for him; of her figuring out ways to sit or stand or lie down to allow for positions that his missing leg wouldn’t typically allow. Her on the edge of the bunk while he leaned forward on one good knee and his half of a thigh resting on a crate so he could lean in to unwind her with his tongue. Jim perched on the edge of their desk with her legs around him, not even fucking! Just fully clothed, touching him because she could! And all the thousands of moments of her mouth on his, on his chest, his prick, his destroyed leg—Jim kissing his scars as she toured him lazily but interested, asking for story after story…

She’s _just a girl_. Just some girl.

Of course, she _isn’t_ just some girl, but that’s the fact he’s been aware of, and miserable over for ages now. Replacing her would be increasingly difficult, and going back to doing this alone? Well, he’d adjust, but he thought their arrangement would last.

“There are brides your age every day,” he forces himself into a more cavalier tone. Jim knows his past; she knows he’s not the sort to go around chasing the skirts of young girls, she’s even seen an example the women he usually chose. Hell, he told her outright that he hasn’t had a girl her age since _he_ was her age. And it’s not like he hadn’t been welcomed into adulthood at fourteen by a woman easily six years older than him. Like marriage, law, and murder, Jim’s age means a lot of holy nothing to his sort.

It just. It’s just something he’d rather not think about for too long.

If that’s a sign that it’s wrong, he’ll try doubly not to think about it.

“Maybe. But I don’t know if I’m that age in my head or not. Sometimes I feel so _stupid_ , and younger. I talk to people my age and I feel like I’m a baby, or else _ancient_. And then I talk to adults and they’re—You know that’s why I liked you? You never made me feel like I should be sorry, or that I should have known better when I make a mistake. At least. Not until this mistake.”

The poor thing’s been shunted aside and ignored or belittled or outright mocked her entire bloody life and now he’s going to leave her on some nameless port with a bastard to look after all because—

\--Because she looked so _bright_ like an unclaimed pile of gold, _right there_ next to him and asking to be taken.

There’s no use in ruminating on what a good man would do, or what he should do; this situation is different. He knows that he should be _understanding_ , but all he can think about is how unfair it is that he can’t keep her with him. It’s not a choice; he doesn’t have the funds or the established name that Darling had—he had started out as a captain in Roberts’ fleet. Silver had been traded to Flint when he was twenty, and never reached higher than quartermaster. Maybe, if Flint had gathered a fleet, if Silver had a proper ship, a loyal crew, funds set aside he could pressgang or hire a decent ship’s doctor, pay a midwife to sail with them. Whatever it took to keep Jim in his bed—but even _then_ , what in the _hell_ were they supposed to do with an infant?

They’re loud, fussy, miserable little things, who always seem hellbent on their own destruction unless they’re being watched or held onto. He should know, what few babies that were kept and not promptly left to a foundling hospital at his mother’s house were his charges. Their mothers worked the nights, and he would be upstairs in the attic, making sure they all stayed quiet. At the time he had taken pride in the fact that a small boy like him could keep them hushed without the drops of gin in milk that his mother, and sometimes their own mothers, would give them.

He wonders if Jim will tell it that it’s her younger sibling; she’s young enough.

The thought doesn’t make him feel any less ill.

“You’ve got to go ashore.”

“I know.”

Her plate is half untouched; a girl who could never have enough barely picking; and he assumes she should probably be eating more now if anything.

“Jim—this wasn’t what I planned for.”

“Me neither, it still _happened_.”

“We were supposed to be—“

“Does it matter anymore? I don’t…I don’t want to talk about it anymore. No more supposed to be’s. Can we just go to bed?”

He wants to argue that they should at least get it out of the way now, exactly where he’s going to leave her off (he’s thinking Kingston, before they take the next ship), and how it should be _soon_ to continue following through with their plan.

It’s the idea that it’s _their_ plan that _he’ll_ be working on _alone_ that makes him sigh, resigned.

“Alright, luv.”

After all, he might only have another week with her.

Jim crosses her arms as if she’s cold to walk to the bunk, and pulls back their mess of sheets and what was probably meant to be a tablecloth but she had wanted to keep for bedding. Technically, Silver could have slept without the blankets on him, let her bundle up if she needed the layers to fall asleep, and he could hold her through them, but he couldn’t; he needed her touch, her skin, even her _scent_ to fall asleep anymore. She’s so _calming_. Either through actions or quick words, Jim had figured out ways to undercut his temper and his knack for making plans for the first preferred outcome he thought of. If only he had her with him on the _Walrus_ that first time, he’d have taken over as captain before Flint had ever even decided to bury their prizes.

Except. Jim couldn’t have been at his side back then, as she was far too occupied with being eight years old at the time.

A fine cabin girl and little sister then. Of course, he prefers her as a lover, but he’d take what role the world would have put her in, just to keep her around.

She doesn’t undress, and so he doesn’t either. Even if he physically could go for a quick shag before falling asleep, mentally he wants to pass out as soon as possible. With no prelude or fuss, he pulls her body close to his own with an arm snugly around her waist. Jim doesn’t react at all.

“Tired?”

“I have to learn to sleep alone again, don’t I?”

Silver doesn’t answer her. He’d like to kiss her, but is aware that she’d probably start crying, and he doesn’t want to have to deal with that again.

It takes her longer to fall asleep than it takes him, as a rule, and tonight is no different save for the fact that he wakes up twice. Each time, he is certain of a strange noise on deck, and Jim is still sleeping. She’s become a heavier sleeper in this past year, though that isn’t saying much.

At least he can get away with kissing her neck now; he’s careful not to kiss hard enough to wake her, despite wanting to suck claiming marks all over her body, remind them both that for now, she’s still _his_. She used to laugh when he did that, and would repeat his words back as she did it to him, getting tired of doing it properly and skipping straight to biting instead. Sweet bruises on his neck, shoulder, once on his hip, as she kissed back up him after one of the rare times she went down on him in bed.

For all the fighting and fleeing of the past year, most of the memories of any vividness are all here though, sex or sleep, on his lumpy mattress. He reaches up and touches her hair, soft and tangled, almost long enough to braid again. He wonders what she would look like with long hair, and settles on the fact that it would make her look older, to wear it brushed out and plaited over her shoulder. He likes the idea of her looking older.

Her eyes part slightly, and she mumbles what could be words.

“Darlin’?”

“I…I can count—“ she barely whispers, “The number of times I’ve told you _no_ , on one hand. The one time you talked me into it anyway. But every time you’ve asked, I’ve been wanting, or at least willing. _No_. Not now, and I don’t know when again.”

“Wasn’t gonna ask…”

“If you force me Silver I—I would die, I couldn’t bear it.”

“I don’t think you would _die,_ luv, you’re made of stronger star stuff than that. Wouldn’t bother a-forcing you either. But I wasn’t gonna ask for that.”

“What do you want?”

“What woke you?”

“Oh. I thought I heard something. Must have been Flint, I’ll get up and—”

He sets a finger against her lips, and answers in more breath than voice:

“There’s someone on deck.”

“Silver?”

He gets out of bed, puts on the leg and trousers—it takes him under a minute, but only just, and in that time there’s another sound on deck: footsteps, unmistakable.

“It’s probably just a drunk,” she says; quiet, but sliding off the bed and handing him a shirt anyway. He pulls it on, pulls on a jacket, and Jim is putting on a coat too, and her boots.

A hard rapping at the door and Silver immediately covers Jim’s mouth with his hand, only removing it when she doesn’t look like she’ll scream.

“ _Quiet_ ,”

“Silver, I—“

“Is there anyone in there?”

Their guest’s accent is mild, mid to upper class. Silver knows the sound. Neither rich nor poor: not the voice of a sailor, but an officer, or perhaps as low as a midshipman, but certainly not quite a captain. Still. It’s not a good sign.

“We saw the lamp light from the docks, we know someone’s here,” another voice. Bad move. Now he knows there’s at least two of them.

He primes all three of his pistols, tucking two into the deep pockets of his frock coat, and another in his belt. His hand wraps around his knife hilt. There are multiple people on deck, more than just the two; footsteps, the unmistakable sound of a blade being unsheathed. Another that sounded like a metallic rattle— _shackles_.

Jim’s eyes alight in fear and panic as she shakes slightly.

“We’re looking for the captain of the _Walrus_. There’s an order here for the live capture of one John Silver,”

“That’s not---that’s now how the Court of the Admiralty issues orders,” she says, low enough he almost missed it. “And how do they know you’re name? How do they know you’re still alive?!

“I know.”

“How did they find— _the crew._ Silver, your _men_ they—“

His own knife, the one that he had dispatched Flint with, among too many others to remember—he presses it into her hands. It’s not sentimental; he tells himself even in this moment, it’s merely the easiest thing to give her out of their weapons.

“You hide in the back of the cabin, and if they find you, you tell them that I’ve been keeping you here as my prisoner. You tell them that I’ve been forcing you ever since we picked up this barnacle trap.”

“No—“

“You tell them that I’ve been forcing you, yeah? Act like you’re innocent as a saint and twice as miserable locked up here with me.”

Jim nods.

“Cabin girl,” and he wastes an impossibly short second of his dwindling existence on kissing her forehead, and it’s warm. Funny, that he should be so close to a likely death by hanging, and still worried that Jim’s running a slight fever. He gives her a grin; it’s dishonest as his own soul but in that detail, it is genuine, and Jim half-mirrors it on instinct.

Silver steps out on deck, closing the cabin door behind him loud enough to cover the sound of Jim moving.

* * *

Jim is sure as hell and twice as angry that those men on the deck are going to drag her lover—

Not lover, not partner, not anything but captain, maybe, _maybe,_ friend still

—her _something_ away in chains, and they will try him and hang him, if they don’t kill him where he stands.

“ _You can’t do that_.” She says, to no one listening, and with the knife between her teeth, drags a chair to the window, and climbs out it. Without unlatching both sides, it’s a tight fit anymore, and she’s all to aware that she doesn’t quite bend at the waist the same way she did a few months ago when she had tried this. Then, it had been to surprise Silver when he was alone at the helm.

Now she pulls herself up, and shimmies along the side of the rail, ignoring the fact that this time she doesn’t have a line on, and ignoring the water below. Her arms are stronger for sailing, but they still shake with how tight she’s holding on, and she starts to gag against the knife. At least her feet, bare from bed still are a better grip than the slipper soles of her boots.

There is a man, standing where the cabin door would have opened, in full shadow. He is not three paces behind Silver, and she watches in horror as he tries to smooth out some imagined misunderstanding, that Flint’s quartermaster was long dead, and that the name Silver wasn’t quite so rare, and how he would bet his soul that if neither man in front of him was named ‘John’ than certainly one of their brothers was, for it’s commonality.

The man behind him has a pistol.

Whether they’re true officers or not, she doesn’t know, and doesn’t think to figure on before she pulls herself around the corner fully and jumps down from the railing. With a scream at her actions, as she watches almost out of body, she comes up behind the hidden man, and plunges Silver’s knife into his liver.

* * *

_What the fuck_ , Silver thinks at the sound of Jim shouting, the door still shut and he doesn’t know _how_ she—

But the two men before him panic at her appearance, at her screaming, and one of them drops the shackles he was holding. Silver draws both guns and dispatches them at once.

_He’s not dead!_ Jim keeps trying to shove at the knife but the man fights back, and it’s _hard_ work stabbing into a body, it refuses to give, and the flesh is _tough_ , she had no idea it would be so _tough_. She’s seen Silver kill men like a knife into butter, but this isn’t _working_ —she reaches up around and when slitting his throat doesn’t work, when the man keeps trying to grab at her hands, she starts to hack away his neck instead, until he stops trying to fight her.

“ _YOU CAN’T HAVE MY BEST FRIEND!_ ”

* * *

She’s shouted _something_ , but Silver isn’t quite sure what, watching as she drags the man down to the deck, and continues to shove her knife into any soft part of his body cavity she can, her arm shuddering when she hits a bone.

“Darling--?”

She doesn’t hear him, but continues, until she’s gasping for breath. Bloodier than he’s ever seen her, eyes so wide that they don’t look natural. Jim stands slowly, almost slipping a few times.

Jim Hawkins, cabin girl, marooned sailor, pirate navigator, his lover of the past year, standing over a kill she made for him, and wet gore making her shirt cling to her body, the nearly unnoticeable swell of her belly, _his son_. She’s panting from the rush, from fear, and perhaps even bloodlust.

He runs right into the fact he’s been stepping around for months without warning: it’s very inconvenient to them both that he loves this mad girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took almost a week to post, but the chapter was long and I hate editing....also I'm very bad at writing action sequences, and I had a lot of inner debate about how this was going to unfold since it's an image I've had in my head since July/August of last year. Thank you all for sticking around, your comments, kudos, and views make me feel like there's an actual point to finishing this. Love you all.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. When I was putting out four chapters a week, I was at home most of the time due to an injury, but I'm back to working full time now and I'm slowly adjusting from working 18-hour weeks for three months to working 40 hour weeks again.
> 
> Chapter 21 is started, and the rest is outlined. Possible sequels are always floating, and you'll be getting at least one SUPER EXPLICIT deleted scene from around chapter six-ish.
> 
> Thank you all for sticking around!

Silver’s staring at her, and he doesn’t know what she’s saying, but he’s nodding in agreement. He wants her here on the deck, damn the blood, the organs leaking through gouges in muscle tissue of the man at her feet, he wants her crying out his name like she was screaming just a moment ago, he wants—

“Silver?”

“Jim.”

“We have to go.”

* * *

He’s aware enough to know what she means. They’ve been betrayed, and he is numb to it. Where there should be a rage that would make the devil himself recoil with forked tail between his legs, Silver feels only a sense that they must _run_.

Jim vanishes into the cabin again, but appears out a second later. She pulls his knife from the corpse with a squelch, and wipes it on a bit of clean shirt she still has.

Silver wordlessly follows her back in.

She’s stripping down and wiping off blood in the corner of the room, and Silver takes a rag and cleans off the gunpowder from his hands. Jim dresses in layers, and ties a cloak around her neck.

“You’ll _melt_ , it’s too hot—“

“I don’t own a skirt. I need to look like I’m a _lady_.” She ties together her hair quickly, so it drapes over her shoulder, so it peaks out from under the hood. Silver’s men will assume she’s dead for a few more hours yet if they’re lucky.

Silver takes scissors from the desk drawer.

Jim’s jaw drops when she turns around, Silver’s plait and braids on the floor. With a quick shake of her head back to the haste of the moment, she picks up the shorn hair and throws it all out the open window. No evidence that he’s changed appearance. He trims his beard too, quickly and sloppily, while Jim shoves as many maps and charts into their insurance chest as she can. The chest is heavy now, with gold and pearls, rubies, and those strange blue jewels Silver found on the French ship, but the two of them should be able to carry it. She tucks more of his knives in her belt, and the smallest pistol of the collection.

“We can’t carry swords; too noticeable,”

She’s sharp enough to replace a sword in Nassau, and he’s proud of her clear head as she orders him around. She looks sadly at their books, but only takes the logs. She checks the heft of her canvas bag too, judging quickly if she can carry it _and_ half the weight of the chest.

“I’ll steal you a library, luv,” Silver says.

“…..Put the _Odyssey_ in your bag, mine’s already too—“

She pauses; she throws off the cloak, sets down the pistol

“What is it?”

“I have to get something else—“ she bolts back out onto the deck, and Silver hopes the book he took is the one she mentioned. He knots the filthy tie made from her mother’s shirt around his neck. Revelations of how much the girl means to him aside, he doesn’t need her seeing the seconds spared for softness when he could have been pocketing pistol balls or valuables.

The mirror on the wall won’t fit, in the chest or his bag but Jim didn’t even look at it as she ran through their cabin, insuring instead their survival, their castle—

\--It’s not well made, he knew that, having inspected it to see if it would be worth talking her into selling it, but the mermaid was a fine piece of work. He carefully breaks the mirror’s frame, and wraps the section with the figure in cloth before tossing it in the trunk too.

Jim’s shoving something into her bulging coat pocket when she comes back. She puts the cloak back on, tucks the pistol back on, and slings her pack over her shoulder.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Flint’s perched on the jib—Flint!” she takes a fistful of sugar cubes out of the jar the desk. He’s a risk to take, they both know it, but neither is willing to leave the bird behind.

“Everything?” He nods. “Good. We need inland lodgings, and a ship leaving at first light.”

* * *

Jim rolls over uncomfortably in the bed.

She doesn’t want to think about why Silver called the Madam’s second in command his ‘’sister,” and while she wants to trust him, she struggles to believe that he’s downstairs drinking in the brothel’s private kitchen with them. The owner of the place who refuses male clients, and the “sister” whose personal bed—not her work bed—Jim was given.

Surely he’s with another of the women right now. She’s denied him for days.

The two women who had known him before had seemed so _shocked_ by his hasty request for lodgings and secrecy, more for her in tow than for his own sake. She had heard the quiet questions the women had about her, but tried not to listen. If he told them the truth, they’d think Silver a monster or her an idiot, and while Jim is quickly assuming that he _is_ a monster and she _is_ an idiot, she doesn’t think either of them are so bad as they could be.

Silver’s “sister” had other girls send up a bath for her at least, and she felt almost-clean now, the occasional butterfly flutter in her asking her what the plan was now.

“I don’t know what the plan is…” she told it, and herself, turning over to her other side again, unable to sleep in a bed this big or this soft on her own.

* * *

It’s impossible to sleep. The madam was so kind that it unnerved her, heating bedpans for her and bringing her cold water from the cellar, and some minty, sweet liquor in a little glass. Jim had the nagging thought that she was being pitied. Who knows? Maybe Silver’s crafted some story to them all downstairs worthy of being pitied. She certainly doesn’t know.

She’s still raw from it all, from blood under her nails, from the madam’s girl scrubbing blood out of her hair, from Silver not denying that he’d never come back for her. She can’t even bring herself to cry that he’s not back yet. She _knows_ he’s off with one of the women, fucking some stranger. Or worse: a woman he knew from before, and worse than merely fucking her, if he isn’t back yet, he might even be asleep in her bed.

Jim figured he would replace her quick enough, but she didn’t think it would be hours after arriving at a safe house.

She rises half awake and stumbles out to the lavatories in the back courtyard. The back stairs creak on her way back up, and beyond the wall on the first floor she can still hear drunken carousing from men and half-forced laughter from half-sober women.

Jim rolls her eyes to the ceiling, buries her face in her hands and scrubs at her eyes drily. What sort of good is begging him to stay with her going to do? She can’t take care of him. She doesn’t want to. And she can’t trust him around a child. Issues for the morning, she sighs, and pulls back the duvet on the side of the bed nearest her, and lies down on her back.

The denial is gone, and in it’s place she’s deeply intrigued by the changes to herself, and how she feels. It isn’t moving now, and it almost makes her worry when she can’t feel it. _Unless you’re sleeping,_ she thinks fondly. If it’s alive in any way enough to move, surely it must rest sometimes too?

A key turns in the lock of the door, and she impulsively sits up, so used to that sound being a herald of—

“Silver?”

“No, Father Christmas.”

“Why…why are you here?”

She can hear him fumble for the lock, and drop the key on a clothes press near the door before slumping back towards the bed, shedding his clothes as he goes.

“Because you’re here? Because I’m drunk and Amelie told me to go to bed.”

“I meant—there’s…in every room here there’s a-a woman who…”

“It’s a brothel, yeah,” he flops gracelessly on the other side of the mattress.

“We brought a fortune with us. You could afford anyone here—“

“I’ve had half the women here at one point or another. Even Max when she was still taking male clients.”

“Of course you have.”

“How come none of them are like you?” he looks at her in the dim moonlight. “It doesn’t make any sense. _You_. Little _you._ Nowhere in the world and no on in the world made you and now I can’t even think about the first time I was here without picturing you in the middle of it.”

“You’re drunk,”

“I am. I did say so, didn’t I? I don’t remember.”

“I wouldn’t call my grandma a ‘no one.’” If there’s any good left in her, it’s to the tribute of the old woman. Jim doesn’t care that Silver doesn’t seem to notice her annoyance.

“Still, Jim…Jim, Jim, Jim, _cabin girl_ …Why would I go and spend the money for my castle on a woman when you, best of ‘em all, are a-lyin’ in my bed?” he crawls over her, half lying on her, and his wine-heavy breath is hot against her throat.

“I—I don’t think I should….”

“Because of the baby? It’s fine.”

It’s the first time he’s said _that_ word, and of course, _this_ is the context of it. Jim still shoves at him until he rolls off of her.

“How do you know!?”

“Last time I was Bess she was with child.”

Her stomach lurches.

“You have a—?!”

“Well, it wasn’t _mine_. I wasn’t stupid. I had only been back on land for a month and she was showing worse than you. I knew she was fucking the local lord. Can’t blame her. He was youngish, had money. Fever took all three of ‘em anyway. I never met it.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t—“ she hates her small and piteous voice. Like a shrill child.

“But I want to, I want _you_ , girl.”

“I’m not—“ _not worth the trouble_ , _not worth all the trouble and running and murder._

“Stop it, darlin’,”

“You want to stay in my bed? You still want to lie with me and sleep next to me, and—and if it wasn’t for me you—I cost you your ship _twice_ now. You treasure _twice_ , I’m—I’ve ruined _everything_ —“

And there was no small part of her that was fully aware of what Silver had done to the last people who had cost him his treasure.

“’Course I’m staying in your bed, ‘til you throw me out of it at least. I love you, you stupid thing, in case you still didn’t figure _that_ out.”

“You’re drunk.”

“As a _fish_ , but _fuck_ , you’re,” he holds the side of her face, forcing her to look up at him. “So pretty…and your mouth is perfect,” his thumb roves soft over her parted lips and she closes them, almost a kiss, but more of a plea. “And then there’s this… I’ve never known nothin’ like it,” he lets go of her face in favor of splaying his hand across her belly and her breath catches in her throat.

Her hand flies to his and holds it against herself tightly.

“Don’t leave me.” The words come out in a quick, desperate plea, and she hates herself for it.

“You really think I’m leaving you after we’ve done this?”

Jim doesn’t know if it’s the baby or her own nervous insides that start making her feel ill again.

“Yes.”

“I’m a selfish man, trust that. Not gonna let some other man in your bed…claiming this as his own doin’….”

“I don’t want sex. And I don’t know when I will again.”

“…Will you ever let me fuck you again?” his tone is almost _boyish_ , and it makes her want to weep. She hopes he forgets this entire conversation. Hopes he wanders off and wakes up in the bed of a stranger instead. It would be easier.

“Probably,” she answers. “I did like it.”

“You _loved_ it. Never saw you so happy like that, glowin’ and smilin’ up at me like I hung the stars in the fucking sky…” his voice shifts, something lower, and despite the lilt of alcohol still there, he almost sounds serious: “I’ll be answering for you in hell.”

“Silver?”

“I’d been trying to coax you into my bunk or a dark corner since the second week out of Bristol. And I’m not sorry.”

“I wanted you too.”

“’S different.”

“Because I’m younger?”

“Because you’re the good girl and I’m the pirate.”

“I killed someone today. And he wasn’t the _first_ …”

“Case and point; that’s a _Wednesday_ for me, and you’re still torn up about killing a man in _defense_.”

She rests her hand against the side of his face. He had shaved before he left to go drinking downstairs, and his face clean of all but stubble looks and feels so strange to her.

“I would have done it a hundred times if it meant I could keep you.”

“See? You keep acting like there’s no reason for us to hold on, but that? That’s something unique. I’m keeping you.” He still doesn’t make a move to get on top of her again, but brushes hair off of her forehead to kiss her.

Jim doesn’t think a willingness to murder makes her an ideal lover. It doesn’t even occur to her to consider that Silver would too; she’s too pulled down into her own crimes to think about him at all.

“You think about names yet?”

“Oh, I thought I would…just go by Hawkins whenever we head next. No one knows any Hawkinses.”

“No, no, no, I meant for the kid,” without permission or prelude, his hand is back to her stomach.

“ _Oh_. Oh, no…no, I haven’t,” she desperately hopes this is all the alcohol. She can’t bear to live with the hope and inevitable disappointment that Silver might actually stay with her. She doesn’t even dare to hope he loves her, only assumes he’s saying what she wants to hear, what he needs to say to get what he wants, and tonight he only wanted a free and familiar woman.

“Not a one?”

“My grandmother’s name was Florence Mercy, but I never really liked it. I was supposed to be James—Jimmy, for my da, but I was a girl so…Jemima.” So long as he’s drunk, she thinks…. “Silver?”

“That’s my name.”

“I know. If you stay long enough to meet him, you can name him.”

“It’s a him now?”

“If you want.”

“I don’t think that works that way.”

Jim shrugs. “Either way.”

“Any name I want?”

“If you stay.”

“You’ll regret this deal, darling.”

She wants to regret everything. She knows she never should have left Black Cove, she—she turns back onto her side to face him. Silver doesn’t exist. There’s a man’s living body in front of her but whatever false spirit inhabits it changes as needed. Still, there are at least three of the twenty or so personas he employees that she quite adores, and several more that make up facets of her old best friend. He’s a disaster, a criminal, a murderer, a tragedy to himself and to her, but she can’t say she regrets meeting him either.

She keeps considering what will be worse: the one-time grief of when he finally leaves her, or the waiting until he does.

“You’re a bad man but…”

“You love me?”

“You’re the drunk one, not me.”

* * *

They don’t even tell Silver’s sister goodbye at dawn. Jim leaves the island without meeting her a second time, or even thanking her for harboring them—or finding out if she really was his sister at all. Silver himself is somewhat more sober than he was when he had fallen asleep amid their increasingly ridiculous conversation, but at least he didn’t seem to recall any drunken declarations of affection.

“Where is this ship going?”

Jim looks forlornly at the cramped and smoky galley quarters they’re to share. Mr. Hawkins and his young wife of two-and-twenty, poor colonists who were robbed by pirates and let off on Nassau as a mercy. They’ve naught but their trunk of clothes and a few coins, but are willing to work the galley to go back home.

“Does it matter? Far from the Spanish Main,” Silver looks at the tiny shelf of a bunk attached to the wall. There’s not enough room for the pair of them on it now, and he knows that giving a few weeks, it might not even be enough for her.

“It _does_ , we could buy our way anywhere in the whole world—“

“And what good what that do? No one with no names and no family, they’d assume what we’ve got in that coffin of yours and we’d be fish bait.”

“ _Where are we going_?!”

“…If that old woman is half as good hearted as you make her sound, she’ll take you in regardless.”

“We’re not—“

“Bristol. I’m bringing you _home_.”

* * *

Jim spent the better part of the next two days more angry at Silver than she’s ever been at anyone in her life—including him, the day of the mutiny. She refused for the first day to even eat the food he brought her, or acknowledge him when he approached for good night pleasantries.

Men come and go from the galley for grog throughout the evening, and there is no door at the narrow arch between the crew’s quarters and here. Silver had tacked up a sheet he’d found in with the sailcloth below, argued with the quartermaster it was for his wife’s modesty. That too, made Jim irrationally furious: the charade of being a loving couple at all, let alone _married_.

“You’re going to be showing even under that cloak of yours soon. Can’t have them thinking you’re my sister,”

“I could be widowed!”

“Jim!”

“Bad enough you’re leaving me, but you’re going to leave me at home…I’ll have to tell grandma, tell the entire village I’m widowed,”

“Go ahead. Tell her about your dashing sailor who rescued you from marooning, how you had the captain marry you to the boy that very night. Do me a favor? Tell them Long John Silver is the one that killed him.”

She will. She doesn’t want to, but she will. She’s learned to lie to herself so well that it shouldn’t be too hard to lie to someone else, especially to keep everyone happy.

* * *

Her anger gives way to numbness in the coming month that Silver was wholly unprepared for. Anger, misery, even weeping he had been ready for, but to see his bright star of a woman so dull and dreary makes him nervous.

The work is easy, playing the part of a man far weaker than he is. He acts like his injury is much more recent and he isn’t quite used to it yet to get out of any truly difficult chores, and there’s _just_ enough spices in the cabinets to put something together midday that excites Jim enough to eat. He doesn’t tell her he’s worried about her, or that the quartermaster has found that she isn’t in any condition to aid with sailing as they had originally promised when they begged passage. Her rations had been limited, but Silver merely shrugged and continued to give her what he’d been from the start.

Jim doesn’t talk much nowadays either, and he finds himself fighting off a feeling akin to mourning. He misses her chatter and stories, almost more than he misses having the space to sleep with her. The idea of missing her sex is a joke; he doubts he’ll ever get to feel it again, and struggles to recall details of the last time they’d been together. Hundreds of images flood his head, her body as familiar as his own, but not one detail that’s unique to the last time.

The first time, her questions, her willingness, her trepidation and excitement—he remembers it all in clarity. He recalls one time when he was angry enough at some mistake she made to punish her, forcing her onto her back and ordering to call him ‘Captain’ as he fucked her, but she had laughed the entire time and he couldn’t go through with it as intended. In the end, she had pinned him down and had her way with him too. She was quite a little hellcat when the mood struck her.

And always so _alive_. Nothing like this phantom in his galley.

She’s showing something serious now, and it’s almost comical. She’s still slender through her arms, wiry muscles, but for the kid and a slight swell of her breasts she’s barely changed. If anything, her face looks thinner. Like she’s trying to hide a keg of gunpowder under her blouse.

The quartermaster threatens him when he finds out she’s still been getting sailors’ rations.

* * *

“This is yours.”

They’re the first words she’s said in two days to him, now over a month and a half at sea. There was no commentary until she spoke: Silver had merely nudged her shoulder and woken her from her midday sleep (not that she was even tired, only that there was nothing to do and she didn’t like to be aware of things) and put a bowl of leftovers in her hands.

“This is yours,” she repeats when he doesn’t look up from scrubbing off the stovetop of lunch’s mess. She needs both arms to push herself into a sitting position at this point, and the baby protests the sudden movement. It doesn’t hurt as much as it annoys her and she wrinkles her nose at the feeling. “You’ve been giving me your share.”

Silver shrugs.

“I’ve lived off of less. And you could never have enough, even—before.”

“I—Thank you,” she truly doesn’t know what else to say. It’s no simple kindness either, given how little they were allotted.

“If you’re awake though, you can keep me awake. Tell me a story while I finish the bloody dishes.”

Jim struggles to think of anything, but thinks back to the fair, the toy arrows, the groans of the other children as she hit each target, and the wooden seal that might still be sitting on her windowsill in Black Cove.

She hasn’t touched the bowl yet, and Silver glares down at it.

“You’ve got to eat, lass.”

* * *

Like _hell_ is he ever going to see her looking as hungry as she did they day he met her.

* * *

Mumbled talk between one of the officers and Silver, _she’ll need a doctor._ Jim pretends to sleep. _You said your wife wasn’t that far along._ Muffled, heated debate. The sheet over the archway swishing as the officer left. Silver slamming his fist against a barrel.

“You don’t think you’re more than—what? Seven months?” she feigns sleep still. “I know you’re awake.”

“I don’t know…seven sounds right.”

Silver rubs his eyes and sits heavily onto the barrel he’d just abused.

“Ship’s doctor never touched a woman medically. He’s useless.”

“Is it that—I—I know it will hurt.”

“…Cabin girl, I hope you’re not due for an age yet.”

He looks so old in the lantern light. Handsome still, of course. She’s always found him handsome in a way that makes her insides twist. On the rare moments she’s alone she’s mumbled as much to her family (as she assumes, the baby will be all she’ll have. She can’t go back to Grandma. She can’t.) that perhaps its father was not a good man, but he’s a good _looking_ man and surely it will be prettier than she ever was.

“Were you listening to me?”

“What?”

“I asked how you’re feeling?”

“Poorly,” which is the truth. She hates leaving the galley for the head a dozen times an afternoon, she can hardly sleep, and everything about her body feels _wrong_.

“Just hope the idiot sailing us knows what way’s north.”

“Silver?”

“Yes?”

Jim struggles to phrase it. It was something about hearing him talk about it so casually with the officer. It was something about how he didn’t seem to be bothered by it.

“I—“ just _trying_ to say it has her on the verge of tears. She _hates_ how much she’s cried or come near to crying around him. It feels worse than all the pain and discomfort and general sense of dread. “I could be that, if you wanted.”

“Be what?”

“Your wife—I know we don’t love each other, but—but I could be a good wife, if you wanted one. And we don’t even have to get married, it could be the same as it is now, and we just tell everyone we’re married.” She can’t look at him as she says it. “You don’t have to sleep with me—or you can, whenever you want.” He hasn’t touched her more than a casual press of lips to her forehead in all these weeks at sea, let alone made those sorts of advances towards her. Perhaps he respects what she said on the _Walrus II_ , or on Nassau, that she doesn’t know when she’ll want him again, or perhaps she’s become repulsive to him.

“Jim—“

“You wouldn’t—I wouldn’t expect anything from you at all,” she winces. She doesn’t want him to think she’s trying to use it to guilt him into her idea, but the stowaway has learned to kick, and whatever organ of hers it’s smacking _hurts_. That and the occasional cramp, not unlike monthlies that makes her terrified she’ll lose it. She’s starting to wonder if that stretch of time last summer where she didn’t bleed was a lost child. “I wouldn’t expect any help or—or extra affection. You liked having me with you, and I liked it—I really did, and I’ll be there for you again after all of this,” and she’d be lying to herself even more than usual to say she didn’t miss lying with him and being held afterwards. She’s teary now, and it makes her even more upset. “Please—even if we don’t love each other—we’re still best friends, aren’t we?”

His expression is unreadable.

“Christ, you really are just a kid.”

Silver turns back to his work, silent.

Jim bites back on all but the prelude of a sob: some strangled, horrified sound is battling to escape her, but she can’t let it.


	21. Chapter 21

Rain in Bristol.

Jim tries not to cry as raindrops trail down her face and neck, even with the hood of her cloak up.

It’s always been so grey here.

As a girl, she loved it: the ocean and the sky intermingling in the form of wind and rain, and air that always tasted salty. Now, with skin tanned by the Caribbean sun, she feels a wound open up in her heart. True, summers on the coast are lovely, and true, she would sooner die than go through another hurricane season willingly, but here with her feet, her back, her whole body in pain or else merely _sore_ , with the baby who was none too happy about the rough northern seas, and with the stress of checking over her shoulder for Silver every few seconds, Jim wishes they weren’t betrayed and had gone through with the hijack of the gunship.

She wishes that she and Silver were the queen and king of the Spanish Main.

Silver, with his face shaven and hair cut short, looks like any farmer or dockhand. A hat to keep somewhat dry, and a porter helping him carry their sea chest to the first carriage they find—Jim keeps mistaking him for another member of the crowd, her heart stopping every time until she recognizes him again.

He didn’t want to show their hand just yet, but eventually gives in, handing over thrice what a ride to Black Cove should cost to a carriage finer than they really need, just desperate to get out of the rain.

“I thought we’d stay in the city for a few days?” Jim asks, trying to make herself comfortable on the front-facing seat while Silver settles onto rear facing one.

“Why? We don’t look proper-like enough for a nice inn, and you don’t want to see the sorts of men what turn up to the inns along the docks.”

“You used to work at an inn along docks.”

“ _Exactly_.”

She had thought that she’d have more time to prepare, mentally and emotionally, for going back. She thought that she’d have at least one more night with Silver—their lodgings on the ship had meant that she slept without him for months. He might have been near by, but it was different after having a bedmate for over a year.

The closest she had gotten, were a few more recent nights, when pain kept her awake, and a terrible fear that she might lose this awful surprise now that she’s started to care about it, and she would hear Silver swing out of his hammock, and sit on the floor by her bunk. He had found her hand in the dark, and held it.

“Silver?” she asks in the present, “I wonder, if you sit next to me, would we be warmer?”

* * *

The road is as wretched of a ride a she thought it would be, but at her shivering, Silver had draped an arm around her shoulders, and draped a musty smelling blanket that the driver had under one of the benches in the carriage over their legs. Jim doesn’t tell Silver that the shiver isn’t from the wet, or at least not entirely.

He told the driver she was his wife.

“You’re not going to tell Grandma I’m your wife, are you?”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“Because you’ve told everyone else. You could have said I’m your widowed sister, cousin, in-law, niece…Maybe not without your beard but I know I look young enough that you could say I was your—“

_“Don’t say it!”_

She doesn’t. It would be a stretch anyway. She saw her reflection in the mirror he used for shaving (he had taken a little mirror, or else had stolen one from the brothel, and she is bitter about her lost mermaid) and she looks so much older in the face. Dark circles around her eyes and hollow cheeks despite what little weight she’s put on other than the baby.

A moment of trying to relax is shattered by Flint screaming, shaking his soaked feathers out for the fourth time this hour. Jim moans a little; her hands smooth over her stomach trying to calm it down as the carriage rattles along. She knows she won’t rest, but maybe it can.

Another shiver as a draft of cold, damp air comes in under the door and Silver pulls her in closer—

His hand falls a little too low, and going by the way he instantly recoils, she knows that he felt it moving.

“I’m sorry,” she tries, unsure if he heard her or not. “I’m sorry—it’s…been _upset_ for the past week.”

“It’s been makin’ you feel like shit, hasn’t it?”

Jim nods. Silver replaces his arm around her shoulders.

* * *

Silver is partially aware that this is the best possible outcome.

The inn is empty.

No old woman chasing him out with a broom. Or rifle. No one to drag him to the local authorities to be handed off to the crown for execution. No one to carve his manhood off for fucking the cabin girl and leaving her in this state.

Jim reads the dust-covered letter on the kitchen table three times judging by how her eyes traveled it before she reads it to him:

_“To Jim Hawkins._

_If you’re reading this, it means that you are, despite what everyone had thought, alive. I don’t know how, and I’m almost certain that anyone reading this will be a vagabond off the road who has broken in to the Benbow looking for a roof and a drop of rum, but I am not a person without hope._

_Mrs. Hawkins is of the understanding that you fell in love with the sea, and joined another crew after our wretched journey. She has not been—“_ here Jim pauses to cry for a moment, before sniffling and gathering her wits enough to continue. “ _She has not been well. I have brought her to live with me in my rooms above my practice in Bristol. I will be caring for her as if she is my own mother. Please let me know you’re alive._

_Please be alive._

_Dr. Livesey.”_

Jim sets it back down on the dusty table, and looks around the forgotten kitchen. Everything in the house was covered in sheets, as if waiting on its occupants to return from a holiday instead of return from the dead.

“I have—I have to go back to Bristol, I have to—“

“Jim, you didn’t want _nothing_ to do with any of their lot until right _now_ , and you—“

“But she’s _sick_ and—and I—“ she starts to cry again, and it builds quickly to a steady weeping that he doesn’t know how to handle. “I _miss her_! I miss her so much, and she might be—what if she’s dying, Silver? I don’t even remember my own mum, just her voice, and barely that, she’s all I have…she’s all I have.”

Silver tries not to argue that the old woman is _not_ all she has, that Jim had cried not too long ago that _he_ was all she had in the world. Little turncoat.

“Darlin’…” he leads her to a chair in the next room over. It’s… some sort of parlor, but there’s a fireplace, and once she’s stopped her full body sobbing, he lets go of her shoulders long enough to try finding wood and a flint.

Once he has a decent fire going, he lights an oil lantern from the kitchen, and sets about unpacking their coffin.

“Where’s your room, luv?”

“It’s—upstairs, all the way to the right, but not the end of the hall—that’s Grandma’s room…Mine has the—well, I don’t know if that’s still there…There might be a blue quilt? Oh. My little seal might still be at the window.”

Silver nods, leaving Jim and a mightily annoyed Flint alone.

When they’re out of his line of vision, he hears her low voice, and wonders if she’s talking to the parrot or the baby. Flint’s going to stay with her, he knows that much. If he walks away, that bird won’t give a damn that he’s the one who reared it from an egg.

Silver finds Jim’s room, finds a greasy old oil light in there as well, and some half-burned tallow candles. It’s dusty, cold, and lonely, but there’s a bed with a pile of blankets, and her wardrobe open to a couple threadbare shirts. There’s no spare shoes, but for some slippers that look too small for her.

He had always figured Jim wasn’t well off, but considering that her grandma owned a business, he didn’t think she was _poor_ either. The wooden seal rests in the window as she had said, and he brushes the dust off of it, moving it to her nightstand. Closer inspection of the bed reveals some creature that might have once been shaped like a turtle, or a frog, made of a collection of mismatched green fabric scraps with two different sized buttons for eyes.

She was sleeping with a toy just a few months before she was sleeping with him.

Bile burns the back of his throat even as he assures himself that eighteen is hardly a child. He was fourteen, for God’s sake! And that woman was at least nineteen…

_And you didn’t even enjoy it._

At least Jim always enjoyed it. At least half the time she _asked_ or even started it. She was the one who could never have enough, always eager for another round even when he—

_And she’s freezing her arse off downstairs, probably still crying_. He could either bring bedding downstairs and they could stop up the windows and doors of drafts, keeping the fire going through the night, or they could sleep up here. A lift of the lantern reveals a little coal stove, but when he opens the grate, it’s empty.

_Back to the kitchen then_ …

He drops the first armload of their things onto the floor, and carefully makes his way back down the stairs again. The railing is strong, he notices, and goes down both sides of the straight running stairs. Until he’s a good deal older, it would be fairly easy to get up and down so long as someone else was holding a light for him. Silver dismisses it immediately. Jim has spent every chance she’s had to tell him she doesn’t love him, and he can’t blame her.

Another two trips while Jim dozes in her chair by the fire, and the chest still isn’t light enough for him to drag up on his own.

“Silver, let me help—“

“ _No_.” it’s harsher than he meant it to be, but he hasn’t slept in nearly two days, and he is, despite protesting to Jim that he isn’t, _starving_. He did steal a decent amount of salt pork, however, and if there’s still _anything_ in the pantry here he’s quite tempted to cook before going to bed, “It’s fine down here for tonight. We just have to be sure to put all the lights out before we’re asleep.”

Jim nods.

* * *

There isn’t much in the pantry. Silver assumes the place has been empty for at least a few months, and wishes the damned doctor had put a _date_ on that kind little letter. Still, he found several jars of preserves.

The bar didn’t have much better: some stale rum, a few dusty bottles of cheap wines.

Still, still… Silver empties the contents of two jars of preserves into the first pan with a fistful of sugar, pours rum over it, and lights it. It smells like peaches, strawberries, and something that might be currants. He leaves the salt pork to boil until it’s edible, drains most of the water, and adds some of whatever spices were found. Marjoram and a cheap pepper, by the scent. Soup enough.

At least the hand pump at the basin works in the kitchen. It seems to be the only indoor plumbing and while Jim always refused to use a chamber pot near him on the ship or their ten-hour stay in Nassau, he makes a note to search the rooms for one so she won’t have to go out in the rain throughout the night to the shed off to the side of the inn that he assumes functions as such.

He brings out a bowl of the fruit and the pork. It’s _awful_ , he knows it, but he’ll go into the village to find out about supplies in the morning. Jim eats without complain, pausing now and again to watch him eat, as if she’s worried about him. She eats it all and licks the dish the fruit was in, and on impulse, instinct, Silver goes to pour some of his own into hers.

“I’m fine. If I have much more after so long I’ll be sick.”

Silver understands entirely, and already regrets how much he made for himself.

“I’ll clean up in the morning,” he doesn’t want to yawn; he wants to offer to draw a bath for her, but _fuck it_. “Bed?”

Jim nods, taking longer to stand than he’s ever seen her take before.

“I have to go back to Bristol tomorrow.”

“You have to take a bath and eat some real food, and rest on solid ground, _then_ we’ll see about your grandmother. Aye?”

“I have to see her—“

“Jim you—the ride here was bad enough, I don’t think…what with—I’m afraid that thing will come right out if you have to make that trip again.”

“….it _was_ painful. I think it’s still upset from it too.”

“We’ll go down to the village. Have someone else take a note if you want,” _give me time to get as far as I fucking can_ _before that doctor comes back._

“But what if grandma isn’t be in any condition to come see me either?”

“Then you can wait a few weeks until it arrives, and you both go see her.”

* * *

Silver waits until Jim’s in dry clothes for bed before he picks up a mostly-clean shirt of his from the pile of junk he’d carried upstairs, and walks back to the hall. Jim follows after him—she tries to do so quickly, but her balance is off and it’s an awkward shuffle.

“Where are you going?”

“It’s an _inn_. I’m gonna find a room.”

“ _Silver_.”

He winces at the pain in her voice.

“Yeah?”

“I didn’t become a murderer so you can run out in the dead of night before you have a chance to meet your son.”

“You want me in your room?”

She nods slowly, half afraid. Cursing himself internally, he follows her back. She never used the kid to guilt him. Any talk of it has been limited to ‘it’ and ‘hers,’ his role in it’s existence downplayed—he’s not so sure he likes her knowing that the guilt works.

“You’ll have to—we can’t lie like we did on the _Walrus_ …” she looks up at him, waiting, and he gathers what she wants: he’ll sleep against the wall, with her between him and the door, so she’ll know if he leaves in the night.

She’s quite _attached_ to him, and always has been. Maybe she really does love him, but wishes she didn’t. Maybe he’s losing his mind.

When Jim settles with her back to his chest though, it doesn’t matter. Lost mind, lost ship, lost gold. The Hawkins girl is asleep in his arms and it’s one single thing in this terrible turn his life has taken that actually feels right.

* * *

Jim still wouldn’t use the pot in her room, and Silver woke each time she woke up to find a coat and wander outside.

“Just drag it to another room, luv.”

“But—“

“ _Jim_.”

* * *

Morning brings a miserable Jim waking early enough to dump it outside before Silver could wake and do it for her.

She wanders to the kitchen, stoked the kitchen fire and the fire in the parlor. The inn needed so much help…it looks like Grandma had been given some of the treasure from what Jim figures might have originally been her cut—the floor layout was different than she remembered. The dining area in the front of the inn was now just for drinking, showcasing all of her grandfather’s nautical carvings on the mantle and around the bar itself. Part of the old private wing of the house had been made into a dining room, with tall windows and a fireplace big enough to stand in—no logs for it though, the only wood was what she had found in the parlor and a couple dusty ones in the kitchen. There’s hardly any coal left either.

No food really, and her stomach growls.

If Silver doesn’t take all their money with him when he leaves, she might finish the remodeling, and make this place a retreat for adventurous sorts to come and share stories. It’s a dream, but she needs to hold onto a dream at this point.

“My mum’s cradle might still be in the attic,” she tells the annoyed baby. She wonders if it ever sleeps, for how active it is, or if—like herself—it tosses and turns when asleep.

“I’ll go up later, see what we’re dealing with.”

Jim looks up with a start; Silver was surveying the kitchen in the morning light, and using his sleeve to brush at the frost on the window above the sink.

“I want to write a letter. Explain to my grandmother—if she thinks I’m alive she must be so upset I never tried to visit or…”

“I have to go to town for supplies at any rate,” he tries the water pump, and it works fast enough. “This is the only running water?”

“Unless Grandma had something else installed.”

“There’s a well in the back?”

“Front yard. It’s got a fence around it because drunkards kept throwing things in it or trying to piss in it.”

“Fantastic place.”

“No one from town really came towards the end. We had our locals come in on Friday nights, but the week nights were just travelers. They’d come in, drink half our wares and then run out before paying us. Grandma was too kind to ask for the money upfront.”

“That’s not going to happen again…”

“Silver?”

“Some polish, dusting. It’s a nice kitchen. Lots of workspace. Is there a cellar?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Setting your business back up. You and the kid will need some kind of income.”

“Oh. I’m not a very good cook—I need a recipe to follow or else things get…ruined.”

“I noticed that,” he smiles at her, and it _almost_ gets her to smile. He crosses the kitchen to kiss her for it—she ducks, flinching away from him as if he had raised a fist at her.

Silver catches her around the back, not so easy a maneuver with her size now: he can’t quite pull her flat against himself, but it’s enough that he can hold her still long enough to kiss her forehead. He stays there for a moment, just smelling her hair (bad; he knows he is too, neither of them have bathed since Nassau, but she still, under sweat and grime, smells like her, _her, her, her_ ).

“You said you have to go out?”

“I won’t be long.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“You are in no condition to walk a mile uphill. And do you want everyone knowin’ just yet?”

“Oh…Well—I need a doctor or a midwife or…And Dr. Livesey’s left for the city—“

“Dr. Livesey would have us hanged as pirates the second the kid’s out of you.”

“No! No, no, she—“

“I know that fellow’s sort! They all think the law is God and the king speaks like a prophet. Doesn’t matter he’s half mad. Doesn’t matter that we took what was ours and worked for it—“

“We’re _murderers_. If we were taken—we would deserve—“

Silver holds her by the shoulders, _tightly_.

“ _You_ deserve to die an old woman in a castle, in your bed, with your husband and children and books. Livesey don’t have to know what you’ve done either…”

Jim laughs at his delusions of her goodness, at the joke of an image of her with anyone other than him. A murderess and pirate’s whore. If she was an unlikeable girl before, well, this isn’t any better.

“What _castle_ , Silver? I’m not going back to sea with you—not without…not without it.”

“We’re not going to sea with anyone who can’t walk on their—“ Silver shifts his weight, the constant checking of balance between his real leg and the fake one, and realizes what he just said. “I’m not keeping watch out for _both_ of you.”

“I would take care of it…I said I would. I said you won’t have to—I won’t expect anything extra from you.”

Silver has to look away from her at that point, a mixture of anger and _something_ simmering under his skin.

He loved a sweet and talkative girl with stars for eyes, a girl who looked at him with so much affection and innocence. He loved young woman who would pull him into bed, give and take until they were both exhausted, and let him sleep in her arms.

This ghost in front of him with tears quietly falling down her face seems nothing like her at all.

“I’ll go into town…get some food at least; coal, oil… No one in town sells books, do they?”

“No, why?”

“I told you I’d steal you a library. That offer stands. I won’t go until I’ve replaced all those books you lost.”

“I have a few in my room. Please don’t steal from anyone in town. I don’t want someone catching you.”

“I’ll be a traveller, staying at the inn on Mrs. Hawkins’s hospitality. She wants someone keeping the place clean for when her Jim comes home.”

“I don’t care what you tell anyone, just tell me the lies so I know what to say if anyone comes to nose around.”

“Do you know of anyone in the town who could help you?”

Jim hugs herself, half from cold, half because she wants to be held.

“I don’t. I—there’s…the people in town aren’t very—I wasn’t joking, or just telling stories when I said that I’m strange.”

“I know you’re strange. It’s one of the reasons I like ya.”

“Everyone here I knew was either—oh. I skinned my knee once climbing around the old mill. The blacksmith—her husband found me, and she cleaned my knee. They helped me walk home.”

“Does she have a name?”

“Eliza…I don’t know her last name. I think Smith? But that can’t be right.”

“Does she have her own children?”

“Three? Maybe four.”

“She’ll know things then.”

“Don’t—don’t tell her it’s me. Please? Just say it’s your wife—or your partner. I don’t need people in town thinking we’re married when you vanish.”

It’s a strange turn of opinion and Silver watches her as she roots through the pantry for tea.

“Why’s that?”

“Because then I won’t just be some stupid immoral girl. I’ll be a stupid girl who was so awful her husband walked away from her.”

“No one would—“

“What would you think? If you only knew me as a strange child who talked to fairies and complained about wearing skirts? If you saw me again, here and alone with a baby? I know I would just think I was a stupid, immoral girl who let the first man to notice her do whatever he wanted. If I heard that she had a husband, I’d assume he was bored or annoyed by her, and left.”

Silver considers the bite in her words, _carefully._

“You don’t—It’s a lot more to the story than that.”

“Is there?”

“Marooning, for one. There was always that chance you and I were going to be trapped there for years on our own—and you know I meant what I said, when I told you that I wouldn’t have minded it. And you’ve saved our hides a dozen times. You had the idea for that coffin full of treasure. I stood there like an imbecile while you packed and cleaned us out that night we were betrayed.”

“I wasn’t enough—I wasn’t, you were always—“

“Always _what_? Every single night you and I shared a bed, I never called you by no other woman’s name. I never wanted another. I trusted you. Partners.”

“But I’m _not_ enough now either—and—and please I’m so afraid that if you try to run you’re going to be caught and I won’t ever know what happened to you.”

“I’m not gonna get caught.”

“Please…just lay low here—until some other pirate makes a story.”

“’S smart…smart thinking. Mostly it’s what I planned on doing anyway. Clever girl—you really did save us that night, you know? I don’t know what I would have done. Gone looking for blood, eventually I suspect, but I wouldn’t have left the ship. I would be dead if not for you,” he thinks of her moving so quickly and carefully, knowing that their chest was already packed for something like this, knowing exactly where all the other items were they could need, and knowing that they had to leave their swords.

He looks up as the kettle whistles. “What did you get from the deck?”

“What?”

“When we left: you took the cloak off and vanished for a few minutes.”

“I don’t know what— _oh_. Oh, I brought….” She bites her lip, looks past him to the parlor where the chest still rests. “Hold on,”

Jim can’t kneel with any more ease right now than he can, but on seeing her make the attempt he stops her, and sinks carefully to the floor instead.

“It’s—in the blue coat pocket.”

Silver had dug around this thing a few a times, but had always ignored that particular article. It was too short for him to wear (not so, he had argued to her when modeling it. It was a very French military look, and he thought it was flattering, but the short length of it made Jim laugh and so he had given it to her instead). He had never noticed the bulge of the pocket before, and pulls out fabric, silk, a lot of it all crushed in tightly like a magic trick.

“Darling…”

“Figured that you should have it, for when you go sailing again.”

Silver holds the silk colors of the _Walrus_ between both his outstretched arms, and it still isn’t fully open.

“I…”

“Didn’t feel right leaving it. And I didn’t need them using it to find us either,” she taps gently at his shoulder, where she knows he has the skull with crossed tusks tattooed in black.

He looks up at her watery eyes and her fond smile, and he wishes she would let him drown in her.

“Silver?”

“Give me an arm,” he can’t admit to needing up and look her in the eyes at the same time, but as soon as he’s steady he holds her still and kisses her hard.

Jim stands shocked-still, and when his eyes open, hers look wide as if they never closed.

“Jim?”

“I thought you were done doing that.”

He doesn’t ask for clarification, but moves his hands from her forearms to the sides of her neck. It takes a second for him to remember: that’s not how to kiss a woman, that’s how to hold someone’s neck to break it. He changes again, to the sides of her face, and kisses her again.

She’s pliant, yet unresponsive and he doesn’t bother to try making it any deeper. The only motion she makes is a brief pucker of her lips against his lower one as he pulls back, so slight he might have imagined it. It’s addictive after so long, the novelty of kissing a woman, of kissing _Jim_ again, and he tries to once more but she gently pushes at his chest.

“You don’t want to?” he asks, almost offended.

“I don’t…understand you at all.”

“I know that.”

“No, please it’s…I don’t know what I did or…what it is you think I am but I’m just—a girl. I’m _not_ some grand pirate’s mistress I’m just little Jim Hawkins from _nowhere_ and I’m _not_ …worth all—“

“You don’t want me leaving, but you keep listing the reasons I should?”

“I—“

“You risked your neck and the kid’s for my fucking _flag_. I don’t know what you call that, or what fucked thing it is we’ve got, but that’s _something_ , girl. And I trust you. Do you know how few people in my life I’ve said that to?”

“ _Silver_.”

“Ah, ah: that I’ve said that to _and_ meant it?”

They both know the answer is few, but neither an exact count.

“I want to trust you. I _always_ wanted to trust you.”

Silver smiles and it’s melancholy to see.

He knew she always wanted to love him.

* * *

It’s so _bloody_ cold.

Jim is shivering a little in her sleep, and he tugs her close again. Her two feet are frozen even in stockings against his one. At least he’s a bit warmer for holding her, and at least she’s still asleep. These past couple weeks have been miserable for them both, even as she slowly adjusted to being back at the inn.

His hand rests on her belly. Not long now, the small thing inside awake and moving even as its mother sleeps. It’s the worst crime he’s ever done in his life, but he really does want to hold it. If Jim doesn’t go back on her offer, he wants to name it too. It’s too much to consider when she’s awake, always so distant and sad, but when she’s asleep and he can imagine that she is still in love with him, it’s nice. They would never be like the Darlings, but maybe—

Well. He doesn’t know. He’s getting too old to sail, inching towards the wrong side of his thirties, but he _wants_ to sail again. He’s _tired_ , and even out there on the Spanish Main, alive with the nerves of knowing they were one mistake from death, he only wanted the end of the last watch, and Jim crying out under him in their bunk. That’s all. But the thought of having to stay here forever makes him sick. He’s not patient, and any traveling would have to wait until the kid was walking unless Jim eventually decides to give it up—but he doesn’t want that to happen either.

Jim vocalizes distaste. Awake, because of him or the baby, she grumbles, and wriggles against him. She’s still shivering.

_Hell_. Silver sits up, and scoots down to the foot of the bed to avoid climbing over Jim or having to make her move, and he faces the cold room, cold air. He hops pathetically along the wall to the wardrobe until he can reach the quilt on the top of it. More layers at least. Bloody England in the winter.

“C’m back…” she mumbles, only ever begging when she’s not quite awake, never even asking for his company in bed if she’s fully aware.

“Just getting another blanket,”

“You woke the stowaway,” she says as he climbs back in on the front of the bed. Luckily she’s too tired to fear him walking out on her at this hour, and she merely turns over (no small feat now) so he can hold her again. Silver tries not to smile at her motions, at her annoyed words.

“Darlin’, I don’t think that was my doing,”

“I’m freezing, just hold me,” he tugs the quilts up over them, and Jim pulls his arm around her, resting his hand under hers against her chest. “Sometimes…I like to think you’re staying for _me_ ,”

“You’re mine girl, I keep tellin’ ya that...”

“You won’t leave when your name vanishes from the broadsides?”

“Don’t know where else I’d go.”

“…You won’t leave if it’s not a boy?”

“I don’t bloody care what it is, as long as you’re well recovered,” but she’s shivering again, and he leans forward to kiss her shoulder. “Why don’t I move your bed to the parlor tomorrow? We can sleep in front of the hearth.” The little coal stove hasn’t been doing them much good, not when it keeps getting colder.

“…Not a bad idea. I don’t want to be trapped up here in the cold when—the baby…”

“We’ll stop of all the edges around the windows and door, keep embers glowing through the night, and we’ll be cozy enough, luv.”

* * *

He hasn’t lived in this house for three weeks yet and he already knows it near as well as Jim. Naturally nosey, curious, and without any boundaries whatsoever, he has poked through every nook and cranny of the building, memorizing where things are kept, and reorganizing where things didn’t make sense until the place is operating smoothly as a ship at his command. The kitchen he could work in with a blindfold.

It’s gotten a little warmer, thanks to some minor repairs they’ve made on drafty windows and doors, and for having the stoves and hearths burning. Silver had even gone out and felled a modest pine from the edge of the woods, to Jim’s horror.

“ _They all belong to the magistrate!”_

Well lots of good they were doing him. Silver spent the afternoon splitting it into firewood, and Jim doesn’t shiver from the cold anymore. If that’s what gets him hanged finally, so be it, he thought tiredly.

It was worth it, not just for the warmth of the fires, but when he had looked up to the window, Jim was watching, eyes full of something like want, as he butchered it into firewood. She didn’t mention anything later, but he had seen that, the glint and the smile and the bit lip like she was sixteen again and unsure of what to do with her desires.

Jim’s room, he could traverse blindly as well, but he’d rather not. The mixture of clutter and near-compulsive neatness throughout is like talking a walking tour through her life. There’s old toys (few, all handmade and nothing fancy, with a distinct look that they had been someone else’s playmates before they were hers), half-finished scraps of sewing projects (as if she had been told to make something by a well meaning tutor who could no longer force her to work), papers, and tattered old books, maps (some hand drawn, child’s ideas of treasure maps), and a few pencils on a desk far too short for her.

There are baby clothes on the desk in a tidy pile. The blacksmith had offered to come and talk to his wife, when he had mentioned that they were staying at the inn for Mrs. Hawkins, but Silver had insisted she was a quiet, independent, (and flighty, he had said too, with no lack of affection) sort, and when she wanted company, she would seek it out. His obvious admiration had placated the woman’s concern, but she had sent him off anyway with hand-me-downs unasked for, and an open invitation.

_“What did you say your name was?”_

_“John Hawkins.”_

_“You didn’t say you were a relative of Mrs. Hawkins?”_

_“….Distant. By marriage. Sort of...”_

Jim had dutifully, with a frown the entire time, cut and sewed a pile of what he assumes are nappies from an old sheet, but they’re all of different sizes and shapes. He knew better, at least, than to critique her work out loud. He kissed her again that night, when she finally set aside her grandmother’s sewing basket with an annoyed huff. He kissed her again before bed.

It wasn’t a reward, but it might have been an apology, and she accepted it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this meandered around worse than Jim and Silver's wishy-washy thoughts of the future, and for that I'm sorry.
> 
> Started making it. Had a breakdown. Here you go.
> 
> lol I thought this was going to be over in 22 chapters.
> 
> ALSO: I'm aware that ya'll signed up for smut and got all this Drama, but there's a multi-part epilogue on the horizon, and also at least one outtake coming up ;)


	22. Chapter 22

There was blood of course, and a lot of it.

After an afternoon of feeling _off,_ and only a few days after a horrified false alarm, Jim had woken in tears that soon turned to more pained noises.

She wouldn’t remember it, but as Silver hurried to dress, struggling for the first time in years with the back buckle of his leg, Jim begged, just the once:

“ _Don’t leave me_.” She meant in the moment, not for forever, because she was genuinely afraid that she was dying.

Silver tried to calm her, but he knew, and knew how far the village was—in the dark at that. And it’s not as if he hasn’t seen this, been in the room for more than one birth when he was a boy—a helpful hand is a helpful hand, and he was a morbidly curious child. It wasn’t…too difficult, on his end of things if he remembered correctly.

Some wailing _thing_ , some slimy creature dredged up from the sea floor was born from the screaming cabin girl. It’s pale in the lamplight, corpse-like, but it’s _screaming_ —or at least trying to, so it’s certainly _alive—_ and Silver cuts a fleshy rope with his own knife.

(It’s the knife he had killed Flint with, his personal utility knife. He’s killed others with it too, slit a few goats’, pigs’ throats while working in kitchens. It’s not unique to him. The history of it didn’t occur to him).

He tied it off; he remembers that being important.

It looked awfully gory, despite being alive, and apparently in one piece, and despite Jim’s weak begging to see it, he cleaned it off the worst of the mess with the little towel by Jim’s water basin on the nightstand. It looked more like a baby, and even in that low, flickering light the concept of what _it was_ disturbed him deeply, and he rushed to hand it over to Jim.

Even trying to avoid looking directly at it, he couldn’t _not_ notice:

“You have a girl,” he said, hollow, noting that she’s still bleeding, and he remembered the shock one of the women at his mother’s house had when she found out that she still had to go through the afterbirth. “’S not over yet…” he kissed Jim’s sweaty forehead, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

* * *

Once he was confident that Jim wasn’t about to fall dead, he headed out for the blacksmith’s cottage near the forge, and steeled himself for the moment when the town would find out about their strange missing girl.

* * *

Eliza didn’t even recognize Jim, and by the time she did, she tried not to make a fuss.

Silver hovered awkwardly on the opposite side of the room until the woman washed her hands in the basin, and gathered up the ruined linens. Silver went through the old trunk at the foot of the bed for more, glad that Eliza had vanished downstairs with the worst of the blood.

“I—I know I meant…”

“Jim?” he had to move closer to her to hear what she was saying with any clarity. The sea creature looked more human by the minute, and he tried not to focus on it as it weakly nursed. Jim bit at her own lip, clearly still in pain.

“I said if you were still here, you could name it.”

His throat was tight with _something_ , and he felt like an intruder.

Jim flashed him a short smile—when Eliza had brought the light closer, Jim could see what Silver had not yet noticed: he’d already given it hair darker than her own ever was. It was redder than his, but perhaps that was infancy and the candlelight. Regardless, it’s a little person, and Jim smiled down at it, holding it as tightly as she dared for fear of breaking it. She didn’t know if she was _happy_ , but she already felt less lonely.

“Name _her_ , luv. Didn’t you hear me earlier?” Silver didn’t know if had been three hours or nine, but daylight was breaking over the hills, and it must have been the latter.

“It’s a girl…” she wasn’t disappointed, but she was sure he, like so many men, would have preferred a boy, even if he wasn’t interested in it’s general existence.

“I’m not good with names,” he tried.

“Me neither.” Jim brushed at her girl’s wispy hair with her fingertips, like she was touching glass.

Silver hated himself a little for it, but names had occurred to him here and there throughout this tragedy. He considered some pulled from a moment a year and a lifetime ago, the spindly cabin girl looking at him with so much love he was embarrassed for her—but he was still charmed by it, pointing to stars on the empty deck of that little old schooner she had loved so much.

“Cassiopeia.” Jim looked at him strangely. “Told you, you’d regret telling me to choose one.”

“Cassiopeia…she can be Cassie Hawkins.” Jim said, and then repeated softly, “You can be Cassie Hawkins, little darling…”

* * *

“Does Mrs. Hawkins know?” Eliza demanded as she dumped the last of the wrecked bedding into a tub in the kitchen.

“Jim wrote to her a week ago. I don't know what she said to her.”

“My husband knows I’m here. I’m taking Jim and the baby with me.”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

“I don’t know—who you are, or how you found her, or how long you’ve kept her out here, but it’s over—it’s—“

“This is her _house_ , she’s not going nowhere she doesn’t want to go.”

“She’s _just a little girl!”_ Eliza said, with all the gesticulation of a shout, only lower to avoid upsetting the young mother upstairs.

“Jim’s a bloody adult—she’s—“ he stopped. “She’s not _just_ anything, and she’s not _little_ —well, she’s small, or…was small, but she’s not _little_. And I’m—“ there was no real pride left there, not at this hour with this little sleep and this much… _everything_. “I’m no one. A sailor, once. Jim’s—“

“You hurt her.”

“Probably. But Jim doesn’t go where she doesn’t want to. Told you that. She went to my bed. I didn’t—I didn’t _force_ her to do nothing. That’s not what— _this_ is. She told me to stay here with her.”

“I don’t believe any of it. Mrs. Hawkins’ granddaughter was just a—a girl last time I saw her. Complaining about work.”

“You haven’t been through what we have,” and this woman didn’t deserve to know a fraction of it, but he wants her out of his house. _It’s not my house. It’s Jim’s house_. “What her and I’ve seen together coming back here—“ and it wasn’t for this woman to know. The strange thing that he and Jim had was not for the perusal of just anyone. It was—there was too much room for misinterpretation. “Jim hasn’t done nothing she didn’t want to.”

There’s a faint cry upstairs.

“Fine. Think what you want, but you’re not a-doin’ her any favors taking her out of here.”

* * *

“How did you get rid of Eliza?”

“I told her you don’t do anything you don’t want to do, and you weren’t going nowhere.”

“No one is ever going to think I’m grown up. I’ll be older than Grandma and they’ll still be treating me like I’m a child,” she was still holding the baby snugly, and he couldn’t see it. It seemed so _small_ , he didn’t remember babies being quite so tiny.

“This might change that eventually.”

“She’s…You know she’s very pretty—if you want to see?”

He really didn’t, but it was unrealistic to think he’d spend any length of time here with Jim and not have to look at it closely. And he is curious—hell, he wanted just days ago to hold it, hoped she’d want to keep it soon as he suspected things. Silver rubbed his eyes, and with a tenseness in his jaw he couldn’t quite get rid of, he opened the curtains wider, letting in the soft, filtered light of a winter morning, and looked to Jim’s new daughter.

The poor kid was certainly _not_ pretty. It was a scrawny thing; he remembered seeing some sickly babes, but this just looked…sad. Its face was disproportionate, it’s eyes and noes too big, and despite not being a day old yet, it wore an expression of world-weariness more befitting of a retired sailor.

Her little hands looked impossibly fragile. Her hair was different than Jim’s. Her hair looked more like _his_.

“Sorry she don’t look more like you,” he almost smiled, tried to give the girl a gentle—pet? Caress? He settled on a careful pet at her tiny shoulder, as if he was petting Flint.

“She might, as she grows…” Jim didn’t understand what he was sorry for. She was just glad to have some proof in her daughter’s appearance that she and Silver were once inseparable pirates, a captain and office. A torrid affair? Maybe, but she thought that she might have loved him a little, working in the sun on their little ship.

Silver dragged Jim’s old chair to the bedside. He’d take care of the bloody laundry in the kitchen later.

“You should probably talk to that woman at some point…you’re clever, but neither of us know much about—this.”

“I will…and I’m waiting for a letter from Grandma too…and soon we can visit,” she said to the girl, who merely continued sleeping.

Jim didn’t say anything else to Silver, knowing that he would likely be gone along with their gold and jewels when she returned.


	23. Chapter 23

Not a bad life, not by far. England was always too cold for him, but Jim’s bed was warm, and if he was attentive to her throughout the day (or said he’d like to be, but he was busy with something else) she would sleep close to him like she always did on the ship. Of course, it wasn’t the pirate’s retirement he always counted on—Madagascar, Panama, Florida, somewhere in some colony where it was warm and England and her continental brothers were losing their grips.

But here at the Admiral Benbow (what an insult, the name of a pirate-killer), Silver has steady work, an income, a house, horse, a woman in his bed—and—

And Jim’s tiny daughter, just learning to walk.

She’s a strange, changeling child, just like her mother. Her eyes are bright as sea glass, wide as the ocean and full of wonder. Her hair has darkened from it’s scarlet shade at birth to something closer to his own, and her nose is still too sharp for her round little face. It’s almost—it _is_ overwhelming, how much of his own reflection he sees in a mirthful toddler. He never interfered of course; Jim kept to her word and never _asked_ for help, and always looked quite guilty when Silver would wake first to calm her crying in the night. And it’s true, that Jim has asked for a hand here and there, but Silver would never correct her. A few members of the village have started to accept the odd unit that runs the inn, especially in the months after Mrs. Hawkins had passed away.

The old woman had never come home again. When Jim had gone to visit her in Bristol she hadn’t much time left, but acknowledged her granddaughter and great-granddaughter with enough awareness. Jim was tight-lipped to Livesey’s demanding questions of where she had been, and who’s child she had with her.

A three-day visit had turned into a week, then two, and Silver was starting to think that Jim had vanished off, as she had been so sure that he would do in her absence. A traveller stopped by, paying him for a room, supper, and on his way out in the morning read him a letter from Jim.

“ _J. S.-- Grandma is doing poorly, and I am staying until she isn’t here. Cassie is doing well. Livesey doesn’t trust me very much, but I haven’t said anything. I know you’re likely long gone, but I miss you. J.H.”_

The traveller read it twice to him, and Silver took it. He knew the letters for his own name, the letters of hers. He stared at the words, and regretted dismissing Jim’s attempt at lessons on the ship. Silver dictated a short message back, posting it in town the next morning. He knew that the words didn’t matter; only that Jim would know he hadn’t left.

Cassie had kept Jim sane when she returned a month after the last letter, in a black dress that looked too big on her, as if it was borrowed, and Cassie laughing reaching out to him. She hadn’t seen him for a quarter of her life and she still remembered him.

She was a remnant of the worst thing he’s ever done in his life and she’s starting to call him ‘Da.’

Jim apologized, fretful and possibly on the verge of tears (as numb as she still was to her grandmother’s death) she swore she never taught Cassie to say it, and she’ll stop her in the future. Silver ignored Jim’s panic and lifted Cassie up, laughing as she grinned wide, her toothless smile grotesque but endearing. He praised her gently for her cleverness, amused to hell and back that either he or Jim must have accidentally referred to him as such without noticing, either that or their sharp little daughter figured it out on her own.

Jim stared at the two of them, and her jaw actually dropped a little when Silver kissed the girl’s tufty hair.

By the next year she was more alive than ever, more energetic too—entertaining, how much she was like her mother used to be. Jim herself still had long stretches of quiet that Silver doesn’t know what to do with.

* * *

“Please don’t hurt her.”

Jim had been mostly silent this evening, probably just tired, but her darker moods have been increasing. She’ll be twenty soon; maybe the terrible feeling that claws at his chest when he thinks about the years they’ve already spent together will weaken after some meaningless number passes.

“Why would I hurt either of ya? You haven’t been havin’ nightmares again, luv?” He heard a few quiet shouts in her sleep as he roused her from the worst of the nightmares. He never asked what they were about, but the look of terror on her face when she first woke up always told him enough.

Jim meets his eyes indirectly through their mirror—a lovely chestnut piece with her copper mermaid remounted on the top of it. It was a gift from their early days at the inn. They had started off by spending their gold like pirates: as if life was short and money easy, but quickly started to stash it again as it dwindled, going back to making the inn profitable again instead.

“If you’re going to leave— _ever_ …You have to go soon. Tomorrow. Now. First light—I can’t,“ She sets down her brush and rubs her eyes. “I’ll _live_ , when you leave, but Cassie—“ her voice breaks, and she takes a second to explain. “She _knows_ you, she reaches for you and asks for you, and she’ll be so _hurt_ when—“ Jim barely remembers her own parents, and of course she remembers her Grandma, and she wants to spare her daughter of that grief. “If you wait much longer she’ll _remember_ how hurt she was when you—“

“I’m not leaving,”

  
“ _I mean it_! Just _go_ , take the money if you want it, but I can’t bear it…I can’t—and last night when Cassie woke up she kept saying ‘Da’ over and over and she can’t _depend_ on you like that. I can’t either. _I can’t_.”

“Jim—“ Silver pulls her up out of the chair, “Jim, darling, look at me—are you throwing me out?”

“ _No_! No, no, no _no_ , please—“ she’s _weeping_. But she doesn’t beg. “Don’t think of it like that but—you _know_ you’ll want to leave eventually. You’re not—not going to want to spend forever _stuck_ here with me and Cassie and lullabies and working for nothing—“

“Darling, I haven’t been shot or stabbed in two years. I’m _fine_ with this life. I’ve had a woman in my bed every night for the past three, four years. I’ve got a job that isn’t about t’ get me hanged—“ _I have a daughter_. “I’m not goin’ _nowhere_.”

Jim sniffles.

“You’re lying.”

“Have I _once_ left you waiting or wanting? I’m not leavin’—not unless you tell me to.”

“I’ll be fine, I swear, if you could—“

“ _Jim_.” He wants to hold her down to the bed, hold her still, stop her tears, and remind her about what they used to have. “I’m staying here. Believe me if you want to or not, but I’m not leaving.” He wants to tear her night shirt collar to hem and have her forwards and back, on the sea or under it, _partners, darling_.

But he doesn’t. Jim climbs into bed, he turns down the fine oil lamp on her desk, and he joins her.

* * *

In the morning Jim doesn’t wake to Cassie crying, but to Silver snoring. She shivers a little, he’s hoarding the quilt; she tugs it back, and snuggles closer. He’s fallen asleep off of the pillow, curled up like child with his head at her chest, his arm around her waist, and she welcomes the comfort—he’s always been so warm. It makes falling back asleep too easy.

Another hour later she wakes again to the full light of dawn, alone.

Her eyes well with tears immediately.

A few weeks ago Silver had made a passing joke about a crew of pirate children that made Jim blush and almost tell him she was in love. She’s not expecting of course, they’d been careful the few times that she’s been tired enough, emotional enough, or lonely enough to let him charm her into sex, but still the fact that they’ll never have that family is the first thought that occurs to her. It feels like he carved her heart out of her and took it with him, her lungs too.

If Cassie starts to fuss or call for her she’ll get up, but for now she wriggles onto the warm patch of the bed that he left behind, and enjoys this last small comfort of him.

When the bed is cold, she drags herself out of it. She’ll have to make breakfast. She’ll have to make supper too, and do it again tomorrow, and the next day and—

“Cassie?”

The nursery they had put together in her grandmother’s old room to exorcise the woman’s ghost was vacant, and Jim for one horrified moment thought perhaps Silver had taken her with him or—

She hears the girl laughing, distantly, along with a man’s voice singing a shanty she only vaguely remembered out of tune:

“He’s moored at least and furled his sail,

_Aye storm-a-long!_

No danger now from wreck or gale,

_Aye-aye, aye, Mister Storm-a-long.”_

“Silver?!” she finds him in the kitchen, swinging Cassie up and down as she laughed at his singing.

“You look bloody exhausted,” he says softly, almost apologetic for having been caught playing.

“You’re still _here_.” She can’t gather her thoughts enough to reply with more than that, but she can’t make herself go through with this every morning _not knowing_ either. She _is_ bloody exhausted.

“You weren’t kicking me out, you said.”

“I wasn’t,” she sniffles, just the once, and blinks. She shakes off the pain like a cat coming in from the rain, and puts the kettle on. “If you’re going to get up so early, you could have at least started making breakfast.”

“Cassiopeia wanted to wait for you.” The girl perks up in his arms at her name. She pats the side of his face, catching a loose braid and tugging on it. He winces but doesn’t bother to stop her.

“ _Cassie_ ,” Jim corrects him. At eighteen and delirious from pain and effort, she thought his name choice was romantic and sweet. At nineteen and _tired_ it was _awful_.

“What’s a matter with her name? Queen’s name, royal crown in the sky! It’s a good name—“

“She’s so _small_ , she doesn’t need name longer than both ours together,” she sounds more irritable than she normally does in the morning.

“Jim? What’s a matter, luv?”

She slams down the frying pan on the stove, almost shaking.

“I thought you were _gone_. I thought you left us.” She considers, then selfishly adds: “I thought you left _me_.”

“All’s I did was walk down here. No need for dramatics.”

“Do you really mean that you’re staying?”

“Course I do. _Cassie_ here wouldn’t want me to leave, and Flint would stay with you if I walked. Where would that leave me but cold, alone, and friendless?”

Jim feels so worn out. It’s not as if he hasn’t seen flickers of who she was before on some nights. Some of those evenings he had managed to charm her had even been met on the other side by a lazy, affectionate tumble in the morning—but so often, too often, Jim has been stern, pragmatic, and distant. And _afraid_.

“Darlin’, I like you. I’d rather be here, doing whatever we’re doing here, than somewhere you aren’t, with harder work and certain death on the horizon.”

She nods slowly, trying to absorb his words. Thinking.

“You mean it?”

“Every word, luv. I’ll never be captain at this rate, and I’d rather be cooking in my own house than for some other man’s crew.”

She takes Cassie, who starts to fuss immediately at being taken from her father, and bounces her a little until she starts laughing again. Jim smiles up to Silver.

“Do you want a son?”

* * *

“I _am_ being serious!”

“ _Jim_ , you—you’re still _awfully_ young, and Cassie…” the conversation had lasted all through breakfast, no matter how many times Silver tried to deflect it.

“I’ll be twenty in _four_ months. Surely old enough. Cassie’s almost two. Well. Close enough. _And_ you never had a problem with my age before—“

“It bothered me plenty—“ and he doesn’t want to let her know that it bothered him more _after_ the fact than during that glorious year at sea with her. “And did you even want—“

“But you talked about having more—“

“I _joked_ about it, there’s a difference.”

“You don’t want more children?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think it was _option_ —at least I never—not in this _context_ and I don’t want you feeling like you owe it to me. Or that this is a reward for not walking out on ya.”

“It’s not…it’s not a _reward_. ” It’s _exactly_ what it is. “Set Cassie on her cot, she’ll nap off breakfast, and we might even get a whole hour.”

Silver chokes on his tea, spitting it back into the tankard he drank out of regardless of the hour or drink at hand. Jim wrinkles her noes at his poor manners on instinct, but deeper than the surface reaction, she is still more than a little enamored with how little he cares about keeping up formal pretenses.

“You want to do this _now_?”

“Do you whatever you want when you’re done, but if you’re telling me that you mean to stay out the rest of your life here,” Jim stands up and moves behind him, hugging his shoulders as he sits, as she would at his desk on the ship, and she kisses his neck “I want you in my bed, _Captain_ ,” she knew what _that_ used to do to him. “I want you…”

“Jim—“ she moves away when he rises, her arms folded as she leans against the counter.

“Either pull of out me when you’re done or don’t, but come on. Upstairs.”

He’s not about to let the offer slide, even if he has no intention of letting her have another child, not now, and not like this.

* * *

He didn’t realize until now just how much Jim had changed. He missed her taking eager part in this; wide-awake and full of want for _him_ not just satiating a hunger he happened to be capable of fulfilling.

Her arms around him, her eager kisses, her hips rising against his own with their movements, her sounds, her _words_ —no other woman ever _talked_ through it more than a few lines of filthy pleading. Jim even laughed at one point when he realized he was closer to coming than he thought.

She covers him in playful kisses when he’s catching his breath, saying something about how quick he was, but it’s not an insult.

“Oh _hell_ , luv.”

“You pulled out in time?”

“I did, but— you didn’t come, did you?”

Jim settles down close to him. All the self-denial gone, and the fear mostly abated, she can feel herself getting addicted to this again. She can feel this becoming part of their life again. Silver wraps an arm around her, turns onto his side and kisses her.

“Let’s take the boat out onto the water tonight,” she says, “That’s how Cassie happened.”

“Cassie took more than one try, darling,”

“I know, you were fucking me for a year before you managed that. It might take us _ages_ , so all the more _reason_ to start _soon_ …” the dazed look on his face as he watches her makes her heart melt a little. “Silver…?” she tangles a hand in his hair, pulls him down into another kiss. The sun-warmed sheets will need washed again today. “You really do mean it, that you’ll stay with us, stay with me?”

“You mean it that you don’t want to find some younger sailor?” _You don’t want more adventures?_ He doesn’t ask her that out loud. Someday he hopes they’ll travel a little, give more time for his memory to die out,

“No younger sailor would know how to touch me like you do.”

“He’d learn.”

“And none of them would ever make Cassie smile like you do.”

“She’d forget me eventually.”

“None of them would live up to _my_ memories of you. I’ll settle for nothing less than a pirate captain, thank you.”

“Even one what lost his ship?”

“We didn’t lose it, we abandoned it. Only navy captains insist on going down with them; us pirates…we’re a smarter lot than that; it’s what you told me.” She cannot _not_ kiss him again. This isn’t the usual pattern of her occasional desires, answering her body’s wants with his own even when she didn’t feel much emotionally—or rather, _allow_ herself to feel. Silver’s eyes are lighter in the sun, and his hair glints red—she hopes Cassie’s continues to turn even more like his, and she hopes she’ll look like him.

“I did—what are you staring at?”

“You.”

“You do realize you’re the one turning up short on this exchange, right? I’m the one with a gorgeous, _energetic_ , clever young woman, and you’re the one who’s got a crippled, retired old pirate.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re hardly old.”

“I’m guessing thirty-four or thirty five.”

“That’s not _old_ ,”

“Darling.”

“You’re _my_ old man then.”

“I can live with that.”

“Make me come.”

“ _Pardon_?”

“Are you losing your hearing, _old_ man?”

Silver grins at her, and climbs down her body, touring lazily over each breast, not bothering to be as gentle as he had to be when she was still nursing Cassie. She moans softly; her hands in his hair as his mouth wanders decadently over each rosy peak, the valley between them, and down her chest. Her belly isn’t quite as flat or firm as it was on the ship, but she’s still slim, and the silver stretch lines like lightning on her body, indirectly his fault, come across as sweet and familiar. Perhaps it’s why she always liked his scars. Her fading constellation tattoos remind him of darker days, and he doesn’t waste too much focus there before coming to rest between her legs, and kissing her lower lips without prelude, closing in on the sensitive bud, tongue working at it with an expertise that she was right about: no green sailor would have ever been able to take her apart like this.

“Darling?” he asks against her.

“Would you just keep going?”

“I’m going to make you scream.”

“You’re—“

She doesn’t have much time to be shocked about it, his mouth back to it’s previous task and two fingers reaching inside her, stroking her walls with a wicked talent she doesn’t want to know where or with who he became so practiced.

“You taste like paradise.”

“Prob—probably _not_ …” she groans, fighting the waves of pleasure that threaten to overwhelm her entirely.

“Paradise,” he makes an entirely uncouth sound as he licks at her increasingly wet folds, “And strawberries…”

“I change— _fuck_ —“ he makes a beckoning gesturing with the fingers inside her as his tongue plays at the most sensitive nerves in her body, and she’s close, “I changed my mind, I want you inside me—“

He adds a third finger.

“Like this?” he asks; he knows it’s not what she meant, but enjoys her frustrated whine.

“Are you hard again yet?”

“I warned you about keeping an old man—“

“You’re— _lying_ —I can hear the strain in your voice—“

She’s right of course, and with a final firm brush of his tongue against her clit, he lifts himself back up; only it _has_ been a while and he uses a hand to guide himself back into her eager and welcoming body. Jim’s arms and legs are immediately snug around him, and for a moment, he just enjoys the feeling. Tired of keeping his weight off of her like a gentleman, he rests on her, _just one more moment_ , to feel this sweet affection she had so rarely displayed since—well…

“I’ve missed you—“ he manages to get out.

“I’ve missed _us_ ,” she says. “Now," she changes her tone, afraid of what else she'd say to him down that road, "You _said_ you would make me scream, _Captain_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The document I had labeled as "Ch. 23" was fifteen pages, so I split it instead of actually posting that.


	24. Chapter 24

Eliza’s oldest daughter was given instructions to douse the light on the cliff if something where to happen, but likely as not, the baby would sleep the entire time, Ms. Hawkins and her cook would wander back in a few hours, and Carolyn Smith would be home before midnight with three coppers and basket of Silver’s frosted scones.

“I can’t promise that… I’ll never be sad again. I can’t always know when that will happen,” Jim says, their little sailboat tethered to the dock her father and grandfather had used for their fishing boats in the summers. It had been woefully out of use for a decade and a half, until the afternoon that Silver had walked her out to see the prize: he never said where it came from or how he got it down to the cove, and she doesn’t care. Her partner is a bad man and a pirate to the end, but she’s warmed by his consistency.

Tonight Silver let the line out a good ten yards, enough that they could feel like they were truly on the water. It’s been a mild spring so far, but it’s still cool at night, and Jim cozies to her lover’s side on the blanket before trying to start what they came out here for.

“I didn’t think—“ he really didn’t, not even enough finish describing his lack of thought. He’d always figured she resented him, the situation he put her in. “It’s…it’s not because of us? Or that you’re not out adventuring no more? Or that you’re…bored?

“No, no…I miss _sailing_ , and the sun, but I _don’t_ miss sunburns, I don’t miss taking prizes—“ but it’s a lie. She loved the thrill of it; she wasn’t immune to the excitement and danger. “I don’t miss the guilt afterwards…or always being _worried_ one of us would get killed. And we can sail around the cove! Save a little each year, and with some of that gold in the attic we can get a schooner when Cassie is older…” She doesn’t know how much a schooner would cost, but surely something left in their hoard, left in the remains of her and her grandmother’s initial shares of Flint’s fist, that they could purchase one.

“We’ll take a summer off and sail around the continent,” he says, as if he never considered another use for the money. Or any use.

“Or just the coast. I’ve heard that the channel gets stormy.”

“Aye, rough waters there, but we could traverse that on a larger ship.”

“As if you’d ever be comfortable sailing again without being captain,” her tone is both accusatory and fond.

Silver smiles. Despite her claims of the contrary, she knows him too well.

“You know that’s why you can trust I’m not a-leavin’?” he likes this, he really does, and he has missed having conversations before, during, and after lying with her. But he also doesn’t like the idea of leaving the Smith’s girl alone with Cassie for too long, even if they don’t have any over night guests tonight.

“I think you would simply steal a ship, or mutiny for it.”

“I could, but if I failed: hanging. Me? Told you already: unless I risk death from a failed mutiny, what could I do at sea other than exactly what I’m doing here, and with…far less _delightful_ accommodations?”

“Am I really that good in bed?”

Silver laughs. He wasn’t _only_ referring to the sex but…

“It’s not about being good, it’s about _you_ , and by the fact that it’s _you_ —“

“So I’m _not_ that good?”

“ _Jim_. You’re good enough to make a saint forsake ‘is duties. Make a devil go to Sunday service—but—and maybe this is…sentimental—you’re _familiar_ like. You know me, you know what I want, and we work well together.”

“I don’t have any comparisons, but…it’s hard to imagine anyone else suiting me as well as you do.” She loved how he looked in the sun earlier, and loves how he looks in the starlight now. Despite it all, despite knowing him for less than the rugged cook, the villainous and alluring pirate captain, despite knowing all he is adds up to a man willing to kill to carve out a niche for himself in the world, she’s still attracted to him in a way she doesn’t think she’d ever be able to be to anyone else.

He meets her eyes as she stares at him. This madwoman, this strange creature, this piece of treasure he’s stolen and broken and used, and she still has her arms around him. He starts by kissing her gently, savoring the lemon-tea taste of her mouth: if she wants this, he’ll do it.

After all, their existing girl is sweet, and he thinks about the wobbly half-run that Cassie did towards her room when promised a present (Jim had shocked him, and given Cassie her stuffed turtle), her laughter and gibberish attempts at talking, and he thinks maybe he wants this too…

It’s like learning how to solve the puzzle of her for the first time, even after this morning. And it’s true that his first tumble with her wasn’t so much of a tumble as a bored expenditure of an itch he finally needed to scratch. He wonders how monumental it was for her, and if she was older, more aware of the game she was playing, how would he have drawn her in?

Silver is still hesitant, and almost at a loss for how to go about it. He pulls her shirt from her trousers first, but her hands work faster at his own clothing, and soon both have moved aside, their coats added to the quilt below them for warmth and comfort. Jim accepts that he won’t be undressing entirely, too much effort to take the leg on and off in the small space, but her little fingers make quick work of the buttons on the front of his drawers and she’s already touching him.

Their boat rocks on the water doubly for their movements, and Silver realizes he’s at risk of falling asleep out here, for how much better he always slept at sea. He catches her hands; he wants to take a moment first to enjoy her being close, how her wiry frame meets his own, her soft parts and hard edges, and how right it is. This is _theirs_ and nothing can change that.

“Silver?”

“Give me a moment, darlin’…” he kisses her neck, tastes her skin; she is salt as strong and sweet as the sea itself. “You know that—so long as we’re living within the empire, we’re bound to the laws of king and country, as fucked as that sounds for us.”

“What are you saying?” she tries to push her hips up against his, get him started, but he just holds himself up over her, watching the stars reflected in her eyes.

“Wait a _minute_. Don’t make me regret the timin’ of this. Where was I— _AH_! King and country!…And under said laws, captains at sea have certain duties, and _rights_ —And you see we’re at sea now, on a boat, and I _am_ your captain.”

Jim looks up at him, and he smiles at her. She feels like prey pinned down by a cat, a wolf, a fox, looking at the teeth that will tear out her neck.

A realization dawns on her and her own grin finally wavers.

“Please don’t…” she mumbles, tucking her head aside, trying to avoid his gaze. She has a sense that he isn’t listening, or else her voice is so small he can’t even hear.

“And I was gonna wait until we were on our way back in, but seein’ as how you didn’t care much for the fact that Cassiopeia is a bastard, I thought to myself, well! If it matters so much to her... So since it does, I’d like to say, witness or not, and it’s technically legal as anythin’ else we’ve ever done.”

“No—“

“Consider, Jemima Hawkins—or Silver, if you’d like it, but I _do_ have a warrant on my name, so that might not be smart. Consider this my formal recognition of you as my wife, and Cassie Hawkins as my issue. And whatever comes back with us tonight won’t be a bastard then neither.”

He had expected her to cry, but to smile though it. He expected kisses and clinging from her, expected the kind of heat he hasn’t felt between them since the month after they departed William Darling’s ship. He expected she’d be _happy_ but instead she is quietly weeping.

“Jim?”

“Why…why did you—? You didn’t _have_ to do that.”

“I wanted to.”

“I really thought that you might have—Get _off_ of me, I don’t—“

“Jim—“

“Get _off of me_. I don’t want to do this, I don’t— _I can’t do this anymore.”_ Silver holds her shoulders down; he doesn’t want to move, but she squirms under him. “Stop it!”

_“What’s wrong?”_

“Take me back, reel the line in or—or I’ll swim back myself.”

“What’s gotten into ya, lass…?”

She stops fighting, and that scares him more than her frantic words and half-threats.

“You couldn’t just leave one day and let me move on?”

“…darling?”

“It would—it _will_ take me so _long_ to do it but I could. I think I could move on. Maybe even find someone else who didn’t mind what I’ve been. Find something else to make me smile one day even if they aren’t you, but—but now you’ll go and I _can’t_ do that because you’ll be able to come back whenever you please.”

“What nonsense are you going on about?”

“Find some other girl, start other families and visit as you please. Have your choice of stupid, infatuated girls who don’t know any better.”

“I _told_ you, I don’t _have_ any other women. Any other kids.”

“But you _could!_ And at least one of those women is going to be prettier than me and smarter than me and—and I can’t move on with my life because I won’t be some poor girl taken advantage of. I’ll be an abandoned wife. I can’t marry. I’ll have to let you back every time you come wandering home. I can’t legally sell the inn and leave it. You just had to keep me as an option, didn’t you? Even if you never come back, you had to know that no one else could ever have me.”

“You think I did this for _myself_?”

Jim laughs, drily, bitterly: “What other motive have you _ever_ had?”

“I thought _you_ wanted—“

“Of course I did!” she trades her misery for hysterics, “When I was fifteen I wanted to bring you home and introduce you to Grandma, and hoped that someday I’d be grown up enough for you to want to marry me. I _loved_ you. I loved the, and I loved you on that bloody island, and I loved you on the _Walrus_ , and I loved you here, and I love you _now_ so much it makes my chest hurt.”

“I knew that,” he tries to say it humbly, but humility has never been a strong point of his.

“No, you _didn’t_. You couldn’t know, and I never wanted to tell you, because it’s not like you’ll ever say it to me when you’re sober and not just trying to make me open my legs.”

“Then why the _hell_ did you come out here with me? Why did you ask Eliza’s girl to stay—why did you _want another kid_ —you told me you want me to stay—“

“What _else_ was I going to do?! I could live with being your mistress or your partner or your whore. I didn’t care as long as you stayed my _friend_ , and stayed _with me._ And now you’ve ruined it.”

“Jim, I swear that’s not what I said it for, I wouldn’t—“

“….I’m tired, Silver,” her voice sounds ten, twenty years older than her age, and devoid of any of the life he loved in her. She had told him only an hour ago she couldn’t promise that she would never be sad again, and she was right: here she was, looking like a woman who never knew a smile in her life. “Just fuck me and we’ll go back.”

At first he doesn’t think she means it, but she lies down again, still not looking at him, and it repulses something in him so deep in his head that the concept of sex is rendered abhorrent.

Anger is appealing, annoyance simmering for too long and threatening to boil, but he doesn’t trust himself to get angry with her, not when she’s laid out like this with her knees up.

She wants him to hurt her. Some twisted up, mean part of her just wants him to hurt her so she can hate him, and be glad when he’s gone.

“I have spent more time with you than I have with any other woman. I’ve spent more time with _you_ than I have on any single ship since I was a boy. You’re the longest-lived fixture in my miserable life other than the damned parrot. And _yes_ , if you believe the fact that I’m a possessive, greed-driven wretch then take as the reason I’m not _bloody leaving_. I don’t want to leave, you don’t want me to leave, _and I thought that’s why we came out here_. Jim—I am a cold-hearted bastard but…I like you. I won’t say things you won’t listen to but—“

“I mean it.”

“What?”

“That I love you. I love you. I’ve—I don’t want to, and I was so scared to even think it for too long, and I wanted to say it again.”

“I’m not gonna say somethin’ to upset you but…you always were all of that. Mistress, partner, friend. My navigator too, don’t forget you were one of my officers.” He leaves out the other title she offered. He’s denied to her before that she’s his whore, and he refuses to bother with denying it again.

“I’m never going to—I don’t think I’ll ever believe you’re not leaving.”

“I can live with that.”

“I don’t want to make this an annual fight either.”

“Jim, it’s been a _monthly_ fight.”

“And I don’t want to _argue_ with you all the time. We didn’t—we _never_ did before. Not when I was—“ she stops herself, shocked that she was going to say what almost came out.

Silver takes his own turn to lie back so he doesn’t have to look at her. The boat is just wide enough at the bottom for them to lie side by side, and he tries to ignore the fact that he can feel her, bare and warm along his body. His eyes wander towards the stars. It was wrong then and he doesn’t know what difference a few years makes, but what does it matter? It was done; he’d taken her, broken her, and kept her when he could have vanished. Jim is totally right in thinking that everything he has done is out of selfishness, even if she came to the wrong conclusion with it. He wanted her, and he got her, and no man or god or devil was about to come between them.

“When you were just a kid, you mean?”

“You never knew me when I was a kid. I hadn’t been able to be one for a long time.”

“It…doesn’t fix nothin’, but if I told you a woman showed me how to do it when I was younger than you were?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me. You probably hadn’t been a kid for a while either.”

“No, no…but I wasn’t a man neither.”

“At least I was of age…” she doesn’t like to think about it, doesn’t like to think he had done wrong by her, even though she knows he did.

“There were plenty of things I figured you wanted to argue about but—maybe you were too shy. Or afraid of me. Always knew you’d come into your own as a hellcat though.”

“I’m stubborn,” she says with a watery smile. “Same as you….God help me with Cassie.”

“I can’t wait.”

“She’ll be _terrible_.”

“No—I mean it. You’re—Everything you—I _really_ do like you. A lot. Listening to you babble, even arguing with you—some distant way I’m always entertained by it. You’re tics and habits. You’re _different_. Like some—you said people called you a changeling as an insult, but you’re fantastic like that, not quite like a human girl. And I want to know what Cassie will be like. What she’ll sound like. If she’ll be like you or—or not, how she’ll take to sailing, if she’ll be as terrible at sums as you are—“

“I really would want another one if you do.”

“You’re too young.”

“You don’t?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“It’d be nice if they were close in age. And _you’re_ not getting younger.”

“Jim.”

“Can it be my birthday present?”

“Rubbish present, you sick and miserable for almost a year.”

“Please?”

“Are you serious?”

“I never thought children would be an option. I always wanted to be part of a family again. And I haven’t discounted the thought you could vanish one day, soon even. And there’s not much else I can give you, but I want to give you something. I can give you this.”

He turns onto his side to look at her closer; her eyes watching the stars as his own had been. He carefully turns her face towards him, his thumb rubs at her lip and she smiles against it, not quite sadly anymore. Her hand covers his with an almost-desperate squeeze.

“I—“

“Pease don’t say it. I mean it. It’s….going to be a very, very long time before I believe you, and I don’t want to hear it right now.”

“But I want to tell you, and it’s honest.”

“I’ve never asked or begged anything from you—“ it’s a lie, but he knows better than to correct her, “—but don’t say it. Not yet.”

“Once I told you that Venus made you out of salt and stars.”

“I remember that. You only said it because you were watching me touch myself. And—“ she hesitates, she doesn’t want to tell him if he doesn’t remember, but—“You have told me, twice, that you love me. You were drunk both times, trying to sleep with me both times too.”

“That’s _what_ was happenin’…not the _reason_ I said it. You’re a right catch, and it’s…sentimental but—I’m glad of it, that no one found out first what you are. Salt and stars, darlin’”

“My mother used to say the sea gave us to her, so maybe you’re right,” calmer again, she shifts closer to him. “I think Cassie is the third generation of Hawkins women conceived at sea.”

“ _How_ do you _know_ that?”

“Because Grandma used to talk about how my parents would take Da’s fishing boat out here at night. To ‘stargaze.’ I had several siblings, and if my parents were home at least two of us would sleep with them in their bed, so they didn’t have any privacy in the inn,” she laughs a little. “Cassie already prefers our bed to her own. And my grandfather’s ship—I overheard Grandma tell Mrs. Crossley once, that the _Galley_ was where my mother was… ‘ _begotten_ ’. I didn’t know what it meant, I thought it meant _born_ for the longest time but she sank before my mum was born—“

Something she said had hooked into Silver’s memory and he sits upright:

“ _The what?!”_

“The _Galley_? The _Adventure Galley_. It was my Grandda’s ship. There’s a painting of it in the parlor above the hearth.”

“Jim, are you serious—Why—why didn’t you ever mention“

“The name is on the painting’s frame! I didn’t think it was important. Half the men of Bristol are sailors or sons of sailors, and there are thousands of captain’s”

“ _I can’t_ _read_! I didn’t’ know what the ship was. I didn’t know it was your grandda’s!”

“The mermaid above the bar is from some of the wreckage.”

“Christ, _Jim,_ do you know that means—“

“What?”

“ _Captain fucking Kidd_. Your grandmother— _you_ and your—”

“I didn’t know you never knew!”

“You never _said_!”

“Grandma told me not to be proud of it! That pirates are wicked, terrible, awful bunch of sinners and my grandfather regretted his life. They moved here when they let him out of prison, but the papers were falsified, the jury called him back and—“ she can’t say the words. Her grandmother always said her grandfather had gotten no more than he had earned, but she doesn’t know if she would be able to watch Silver hang with the grace that Mrs. Hawkins had watched her husband swing. “She didn’t want anyone to know—“

“He’s the most famous pirate in England! They hanged him with a crowd of thousands—they—You’re a _Hawkins_? Kidd married—an Ott, Orlan?”

“Grandma kept _her_ grandmother’s name. She said it was important for women to know where they came from.”

“Jim she was _hiding_ , your grandfather was—Jim you’re the closest fucking thing to pirate _royalty_. You could—you could blood waltz into Isle St. Marie and demand ownership of the whole fucking fortress—Oh my _God_ , I have a daughter by you— _Jim_ —Cassie’s _Captain Kidd’s granddaughter_ ,”

She’s giggling. She’s not even laughing, she’s giggling even with the tears still wet on her face, and it’s so _charming_ that he remembers the states he’s seen her in, the girl who tried to stab him in a dark galley, the young woman having her first orgasms under him, the woman he watched rock their daughter to sleep, and she’s _her_ still below the scars and pain and fighting. He pulls her into his arms and holds her tight.

“Do you like me more because of it?” she asks.

“Not for nothing but your own sake, but _you_ , you are just _made_ of surprises…”

“You should see your face,” she tilts her head a little to steal a kiss from his shocked expression. “If we’re not doing it tonight…can we still try tomorrow?”

“I—I don’t think—“ Jim’s pout doesn’t do any favors for her argument on her own maturity, but it does wear away at Silver’s resolve. “I know you said you can’t promise you’ll never be sad again…but can we wait until you have less sad days?”

“Alright…but, Silver?”

“hmm?”

“I still want you tonight. Even if it can’t lead to anything…please?”

Silver holds her tighter.

“Not out here, let’s—“ watch the stars move, it’s what he wants to do, but he can’t say something so sentimental to her, not yet. “Stay here a while, and then we can do whatever you want in your bed later.”

Jim isn’t happy about it, but accepts, she follows his line of sight to a pattern of stars she knows as Lyra for navigation, but no greater details.

“Tell me their story.”

She’s a clever girl, she knows the story of Orpheus, Eurydice, but he weaves some nonsense about a missing lyre, and a woman who found it buried on a beach, and had her heart set on finding it’s owner—not for the sake of returning it, but to teach her how to play it.

Jim’s asleep, half on top of him, her fingers slightly curled around a knotted scar above one of his swallow tattoos, from where a ship’s surgeon fished out a bullet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the chapter count keeps going up. Next up is a Livesey chapter. Then I might post an outtake before the epilogue. Let me know if there's anything you guys want to see as an outtake/deleted scene from any point in this timeline, or anything you'd like post-epilogue in this AU.
> 
> Thank you all!


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